residential conveyancing

Meet our Residential Conveyancing Team

For many people the first contact they will have with a solicitor is when they are moving home. This can be a stressful time, and usually involves a significant amount of money. So it makes sense to use our highly experienced property conveyancing team who are ready to help guide you through the process as smoothly as possible.

Debbie Phillips Equity Partner SRO and Head of Residential Conveyancing: Debbie qualified as a Licensed Conveyancer over 20 years ago and can act on all residential conveyancing matters assisted by Ashleigh Jarratt who has been with the firm for over 9 years. Debbie has overall supervision of the Conveyancing Team.

We can offer an expert property service, keeping you in touch with the progress of your transaction in plain English.

We can help you with:

sales and purchases
remortgages
leasehold extensions
right to buy

We deal with freehold and leasehold sales and purchases, voluntary lease extensions, re-mortgages and Right to Buy transactions.

All our staff are local and would be delighted to assist you with your move.

The key stages of conveyancing

Fees

We promise we will be transparent with our fees throughout the transaction and you will not receive an unexpected Bill.

Our fees start from £1395.00 for a standard freehold sale and the average fee for a conveyancing transaction is in the region of £1,675.00

No property is exactly the same e.g. there could be a listed building we cannot give you a reliable cost until we have full details of the transaction. This often does not come to light until the contract papers are received as even the Estate Agents do not know the full details of the property they are selling. If one of our cases has an unexpected complication we fully discuss any further cost before they are incurred. You will never receive an unexpected bill.

Our legal fees for a typical freehold purchase under £1 million are £1495.00 + VAT and disbursements with our average fee being in the region of £1200 to up to £5200 for historical listed buildings worth many millions.

We will always discuss any impact on price with you once we receive the contract papers.

We enclose a list of factors which could increase or affect the cost

1. An unregistered title

2. Defective title or more than one title

3. The need to update the title

4. Complex ownership structures

5. An expedited transaction

6. A gifted deposit

7. If we discover planning permissions and building regulations were not obtained

8. If critical documents are not provided

This list is not exhaustive. We like to discuss your case with you as we like to get to know our clients personally and build a trusted relationship which we hope will last for many years to come. Please call us to receive a detailed fee estimate.

Typical fees for a freehold purchase £500,000.00 purchase price standard Stamp Duty and mainstream lenders mortgage.

Referral Fees

We do pay referral/ introducer fees from time to time with a number of estate agents and mortgage brokers which are advised in our Client Care Letter and which are paid from our marketing budget and do not impact on any fees paid by the client

		VAT thereon
Cuff & Gough LLP – Legal fees	1495.00	299.00
Sundry administration fee (lawyer checker, bankruptcy searches, priority search, telephone calls, online stamp duty submission, online ID check, postage etc.)	75.00	15.00
Bank Admin Fee to send purchase money	40.00	8.00
Land Registry Fee	270.00	N/A
Stamp Duty at normal rate	15,000.00	N/A
Example Search costs (for Reigate & Banstead) to include Local search, Drainage search, Environment search and Plansearch Plus	300.00	60.00
Chancel Repair Indemnity Insurance	17.50	N/A

Indicators for additional fees

New Build – In the region of £700.00 + VAT depending on how the information is provided to us.
Gifted deposit – £125.00 + VAT
Freehold Managed Estate – £175.00 + VAT
Expedition fee if you require completion less than 10 working days from exchange of contracts £100.00 + VAT
Key Undertaking (e.g. if access is required between exchange and completion) – £95.00 + VAT
Deed of Covenant (if we are required to draft this) – £95.00 + VAT
Statutory Declaration – £150.00 + VAT
If you are having a mortgage and we are instructed to act on behalf of the lender you will be responsible for our legal fees for this work which are £175 + VAT
If you are selling a property and we are instructed to act on behalf of your lender you will be responsible for our legal fees for this work which are £100 + VAT
Acting for the lender – £175.00 + VAT

We take £350.00 on account on a purchase file to cover the cost of searches which are invoiced as a legal cost in accordance with new rules from HMRC. We take £150.00 on account for a sale.

Disbursements

Disbursements are out of pocket expenses and will always be payable on a conveyancing transaction. As for ease of accounting we have incorporated a number of conveyancing disbursements in our overhead costs but additional disbursements that may apply in the transaction would include:

Leasehold sale only – Landlord/Managing Agents fees for supplying leasehold management pack. This can vary but we estimate roughly £150 – £400 + VAT.
Purchase/Re-Mortgage – Property searches (usually in the region of £300 – £400 + VAT). These are charged at cost.
Indemnity Policies which are insurance policies which cover standard conveyancing defects and if necessary these are charged at cost in the region on £100 – £500 generally
leasehold purchase/re-mortgage – Landlords/managing agents notice/admin fees (if required) these can vary considerably and range from approximately £30 to £500 + VAT. Any disbursements would be notified to you during the course of the transaction if not flagged up in our original fee estimate.

We account to you for disbursements in our completion statement.

Abortive Transactions

We hope that your transaction will progress without any delay but should you withdraw from the transaction we reserve the right to charge abortive legal fees for the work carried out to date. These are reviewed on a case by case basis as to the circumstances, the amount of work carried out and as to whether you are buying or selling another property with us.

Our Conveyancing Fees

The information contained on this website with regards to costs is provided for guidance only.

All our legal costs are subject to VAT at the prevailing rate which is 20%.

Every client will receive a detailed fee estimate together with a letter of engagement and terms of business setting out our terms and costs based on the needs of the specific facts of the matter.

Where there are any changes to the fee estimate as a result of changes in the transaction you would be notified in writing.

We would not expect you to receive a bill of costs that contains anything unexpected.

The fee estimate is not strictly a fixed fee. We would only look to change our fees with your agreement should there be a change in the retainer.

Timing of Conveyancing Transactions

It is quite usual in the early stages of a conveyancing transaction to ask how long the process will take as we understand you have found a dream home and wish to move as soon as possible.

In most cases the average conveyancing for the sale or purchase of a home would take anywhere between 8 to 12 weeks. It can take less time than this or it can take a little longer depending on the complexity of the property and the length of chain and we will keep you regularly updated by email throughout the transaction.

At the start of any transaction we cannot normally give a precise reply to the question how long does the transaction take but we will update you throughout the course of the transaction. It is not our practice to discuss completion dates until such time as all parties in the chain are ready to exchange contracts in order to manage expectations. Our regulators require us to manage your expectations. There are many unknowns that can arise in a conveyancing transaction that needs time to investigate and we are often dependent on information from third parties e.g. Land Registry, mortgage providers, search providers, surveyors, all of which are outside of our control

New Rules on Insurance Distribution 1^st October 2018

Often during conveyancing transactions an Indemnity Insurance is required to cover various faults or omissions in documents available.

Under the new rules on insurance distribution of 1^st October 2018 we are obliged to make the following disclosure:

We are regulation by the Solicitors Regulation Authority
We are an insurance intermediary in providing indemnity insurance in conveyancing transactions.
We do not receive any incentive or commission from the indemnity insurance industry.
We cannot manufacture indemnity insurance products.
We have no contractual obligation with any indemnity insurance provider.
We do not search whole of market when indemnity insurance is required.
We generally use Countrywide Legal Indemnity Insurance as in our experience they offer a wide range of indemnity policies covering most common conveyancing issues and are lender compliant.
The demands and needs statement will always be provided with the policy to confirm we have identified the policy meets your needs.

GDPR 2018

At the outset of the transaction we will write to you separately regarding GDPR requirements. Conveyancing is a regulated activity and as such we have a legal obligation to hold your Identification and proof of funds documentation for 5 years following the end of our business relationship which is kept is secure legal archive storage. This is in addition to any document retention required by your lender (if applicable).

Terms of Business

A copy of our Conveyancing Terms and Conditions of Business are attached.

Terms of Business – 30^th October 2023