If you book your removals too soon, before the exchange date, and then the other party expectedly back off from the deal, or the date changes, you might lose the amount of your deposit or obtain a cancellation fee.

We suggest you wait until you have exchanged contracts, even if you may want to book sooner. Once you exchange the contract, you will have the certainty that you will be moving on the date agreed on exchange.

However, you can research removal companies, get quotes, and check their availability. Also, you can make a provisional booking without depositing any amount or risking incurring a cancellation fee.

After you have exchanged, your solicitor/lawyer or estate agent will inform you about it and then you can confirm your provisional booking. On different notes, you can also make a booking with your chosen removal company.

Local search has two benefits. First, it avoids the risk of unknown liabilities, which could be financial. Second, it provides information that could be useful to the purchaser.

The local search reveals if anything negative is recorded by the local council, against the property. Other than that, it also provides information about roads and other construction planning.

Local search becomes mandatory if you are looking to purchase a property, with a mortgage. It is compulsory to meet lender’s requirements.

Local authority search is divided into two parts – an LLC1 and a CON29. The LLC1, also called Local Land Charge Register search includes charges or attendant restrictions relating to land or property. These can cover whether the property is:

• located in a conservation area
• a listed building
• subject to a tree protection order
• situated in a smoke control zone
• or in need of an improvement or renovation grant

The LLC also covers planning agreements and conditional planning permissions. 

The CON29 provides information about the public highways, proposals for rail schemes, new roads, or planning decisions that might affect the property. Besides, you get information relating to outstanding statutory notices, breaches of planning or building regulations, or the existence of a compulsory purchase order. The area affected by environmental factors is also covered, such as whether the house stands on contaminated land or in a Radon gas.

Yes, you must. You need to double-check the tenure of your new home, whether it is leasehold or freehold property. If it is leasehold, instruct your solicitor to check for the length of the lease. Leases less than 80 years may not be a good deal, because it can be costly to extend and you need to have owned the property for two years before you are eligible to do so. Leasehold properties below 60 years must be avoided.

We strictly follow the target of completing the transaction within two months and for this, we follow up with other conveyancers and third parties who are holding things up. Yet, there are a few unexpected circumstances that become the cause of the delay. Some of the common causes of delay are listed below:

• Mortgage applications, taking much longer to process than usual, probably because a reference that the lender requires from a third party is not immediately available, or because the mortgage lender is unusually occupied.
• A single delay at any point in the chain will delay every other process.
• The mortgage company comes up with unforeseen conditions.
• Any member in the chain doesn’t want to process it as quickly as the others.
• Searches or inquiries reveal something not anticipated before.

The price of your conveyancing services will vary depending on the value of your property and the transaction you are completing, so unfortunately there’s no one simple answer to this question. However, these are some of the charges you may typically expect to find:

• Solicitors’ fees
• Lenders’ fees
• Surveyors’ fees
• Stamp Duty Land Tax in England and Land Transaction Tax in Wales
• Local Authority Searches
• Electronic bank transfer fee
• Land Registry Fees
• Management pack for leasehold properties
• Estate agent costs
• Removal costs
• VAT

For the past few years, the land’s registration offices didn’t issue physical title deeds to any new property owner, since all titles are digitally held at the land’s registration offices. After the completion stage of a transaction, the land registration offices will record you as the new owner.

The registration and the process of updating your details in the land registration systems may take four to six weeks. If it is the case of a mortgage or land leasing, it might take around two months to six months, since mortgaging is entirely a different process.

A survey is necessary as it entails what you are purchasing. Some properties may look well managed but may have hidden repairs underneath. If you do not have enough information about the problem before signing the contract, you may incur the cost yourself. 

Typically, mortgage facilitators carry out their survey just to be sure of the condition of the property.  If you are working with a mortgage company, they will typically carry out a valuation. 

However, the valuation is limited to protecting the lender only. Therefore, it is not recommended that you entirely rely on the valuation report. Instead, it’s advisable to carry out your survey. We highly recommend carrying out a detailed inspection which we can help you do.

While it is not a requirement, it is wise to have building insurance, as it safeguards the new owners from structural damages in the future. 

If you are buying a property through a mortgage company, the lender will most probably insist you have an insurance plan in place. In some properties, insurance is there already at the time of purchase, while others may not be insured.

Exchange of contracts happens when both the buyer and seller sign a contract agreeing to pay at a specific date. On the other hand, completion occurs when all payments have been made and the property has been transferred to the new buyer.