Always
insist upon a fully comprehensive conveyancing quote in writing and
make sure you read the full Terms and Conditions -
Frequently Asked Questions and Disbursements sections.
If you wish CMS will be more than pleased to run through these with you as part
of our comprehensive service.
Conveyancing
or property law
is the word that defines the transfer of land or
property law from one party to another. Licensed conveyancing in England & Wales is carried out
by conveyancing fees solicitors who are governed by
the Law Society and licensed conveyancers by the
CLC.
These organisations
are
there to protect the public and all property conveyancing
fees
solicitors and licensed conveyancers must have
in place indemnity insurance to protect their
clients. The conveyancing law process can be complex
and stressful and it makes sense to use a
qualified lawyer to take care of your
property law transaction.
If you have a mortgage on
the property all mortgage lenders will insist
that you use a qualified conveyancer who is on
their conveyancing panel.
Our Directors have between them almost 60 years
of experience of working in the conveyancing and
property law
industry and we know what we are looking for in
a good conveyancing firm. We insist that our
conveyancing solicitors are registered with the
Law Society or the CLC. Every conveyancing
lawyers firm
must have at least two partners and be on the
panel of all major mortgage lenders. We insist that a dedicated and
named conveyancer is appointed to take care of
CMS clients and every conveyancer must be
qualified to carry out conveyancing services.
Our Quotes apply to England & Wales only and
your conveyancing will be carried out by a
qualified conveyancer firm that specialises in
property licensed conveyancing. Our Solicitors
are multi-partner firms and are members of the
Law Society and they are on the panel of all
major mortgage lenders, meaning they can act on
their behalf with no extra fees invloved.
Conveyancing
is the legal process of transferring the ownership (known as 'title') of real
property (ie land and buildings) from the seller to the buyer. Whether you are a
buyer or a seller, most people decide to use the services of a qualified
property professional, either a solicitor or licensed conveyancer, because this
is a legal procedure and can sometimes be complicated.
A solicitor is a
type of lawyer. Solicitors provide expert guidance on the problems people
regularly face and other legal matters, including buying and selling houses (conveyancing
and mortgages), drawing up wills and dealing with relationship breakdown. All UK
solicitors are governed by strict codes of conduct. The Law Society is the
professional body for all solicitors in England and Wales, who are bound by its
code of practice. Founded in 1825, the Law Society is responsible for standards
of education in the profession and is empowered to investigate solicitors'
accounts and to issue annual practising certificates.
You can find a
solicitor in your area who specialises in conveyancing on the Law Society
website; this also provides information on how to use a solicitor and what to do
if things go wrong. Solicitors used to have an exclusive monopoly on
conveyancing, but this is no longer the case and you can now choose to hire a
licensed conveyancer, rather than a solicitor, if you wish.
A Licensed Conveyancer is a specialist property lawyer, who is trained and
qualified in all aspects of the law dealing with property and is regulated by
The Council for Licensed Conveyancers, in accordance with the Administration of
Justice Act 1985. Alternatively, you can undertake the conveyancing yourself,
but you will need an understanding of the technical procedures; the Consumers
Association, publishers of Which? magazine, produce a guide for those wishing to
do their own conveyancing.
However you should also bear in mind that if you are financing the purchase of a
property with a mortgage, then the bank or building society lending you the
money usually insists on having either an approved solicitor or licensed
conveyancer deal with the legal aspects of the mortgage. It is also common for
the same lawyer to deal with both the purchase and the mortgage, as this helps
to ensure that the two procedures are coordinated and can also save costs.
All of our conveyancer firms sign a legal agreement
to abide by the quotes we provide, not to charge
"hidden extras" and also to provide the level of
service published in our Service Charter - which
you will find in the left hand menu. In a
nutshell a good conveyancer will be qualified,
experienced, pro-active, IT literate, able to
communicate effectively and have a friendly and
helpful personality. Get you quote from a
qualified property conveyancer on the CMS
nationwide panel today.
The definition of a
disbursement is a payment that has to be
made to a third party such as
The Land Registry for online or direct registration of
property title in England or the UK
generally.
When you see the word
disbursement on a conveyancing estimate or quote
you would assume therefore that the items listed
under the
disbursements section would be payments
that the solicitor will be making on your behalf to
third parties. This is not always the case and items
are often wrongly listed in the
disbursements
section.
Some conveyancing firms charge
an unrealistically low conveyancing fee hoping that
the consumer will just compare that fee to other
companies’ fees and accept is on face value as a
lower quote. However, it is very important to check
the TOTAL amount quoted by the conveyancing firm as
some companies are in the habit of including part of
their conveyancing fees in the
disbursements
section.
Once we are instructed to proceed on your
behalf we generally do the following:-
-
Open a file in
your name
-
Write
to the estate agent and financial advisor (where applicable) to confirm our
instructions on your behalf
Write to the
seller’s solicitors with a list of pre-contract enquiries, to confirm our
instructions and request them to send the
draft contract
papers to us. Pre-contract enquiries are a set of standard questions aimed at
obtaining more information about
the property in
question, such as: what furniture (if any) is being left behind, the boundaries
of the property, who owns
and is responsible
for any hedges or fences. If it is a leasehold property, we obtain details of
the managing agents, and
discover whether
the current owner is up to date with things like service charge bills and ground
rent.
