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Service Information

The gov.uk. website currently states that buying or selling a home normally takes 2 to 3 months. The process can take longer if you are part of a chain or perhaps where a leasehold property is involved.

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Timeline for Buyers

  • Once you are happy, you will instruct us, provide money on account and deal with required identification.

  • We will send you a purchase questionnaire along with other important documentation to fill in.

  • Upon receipt of the contract pack from the seller's lawyer, we shall instigate relevant searches, raise legal enquiries, approve the contract and send to you a report with the contract to sign.

  • Unless a cash buyer, we shall await receipt of your mortgage offer and then report to you on this with the mortgage deed to sign.

  • We will report to you on the search results as and when received.

  • We will check replies to legal enquiries and ask you to supply deposit funds and discuss exchange and completion.

  • When the chain is ready exchange of contracts can take place setting a fixed completion (moving) date.

  • We will provide you with a financial statement requesting any balance due from you as cleared funds for completion.

  • On the completion (moving) day we shall send purchase monies to the seller's lawyer and on your behalf pay the Stamp Duty Land Tax to the Inland Revenue. 

  • Following completion we shall register your ownership at H M Land Registry and upon receipt we will confirm registration to you.

Timeline for Sellers

  • Once happy you will instruct us, provide money on account and deal with required identification.

  • We will send you a property information form and fixtures, fittings and contents list to complete.

  • We shall apply to H M Land Registry for an official copy of your legal title and boundary plan. 

  • Mortgage redemption statements are ordered and copied to you.

  • If your property is leasehold you will no doubt be asked to pay for the management/leasehold pack that contains important information for your buyer.

  • We will create the sale contract pack and issue this to the buyer's lawyer and will request enquiries to be raised

  • We will also send to you a contract to sign at this stage.

  • We will deal with enquiries raised by the buyer's lawyer.

  • When the chain is ready exchange of contracts can take place setting the fixed completion (moving) date.

  • We shall provide you with a financial statement once any estate agent fee and mortgage redemption are known showing balance proceeds payable to you upon completion.

  • Completion sale monies are received from the buyer's lawyer, we will redeem any mortgage and pay your estate agent.

  • Keys are released.

  • Any balance sale proceeds due are provided to you or transferred to any related purchase.

Complaints Process

We are confident that we will give you a good quality service.  However, if you have concerns or queries about our service please in the first instance, refer them to the person dealing with your matter or otherwise address your concern to Kathryn Heathfield at our office.   

 

Once we have received your compliant, we will write to you within 7 days to explain how your compliant will be investigated if a complete response to your compliant has not been made by that time.  You will be told the latest date by which a complete answer will be given to your compliant (this should not be more than 28 days after we receive your complaint).

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Should we be unable to resolve any grievance you may have please note that you may contact the Legal Ombudsman which must be within 6 months of our written final response to your compliant.  You can refer your complaint within 1 year from the date of the problem happening or within a year from when you found out about it.  Please note to contact them at enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk or 03005550333 or PO Box 6167 Slough SL1 0EH.  If you make a valid claim against us for a loss arising out of work which we are legally responsible, and we are unable to meet our liability in full, you may be entitled to claim from the Compensation Fund administered by the Council for Licensed Conveyancers who are our statutory regulator. A full Complaints Procedure is available upon request.

Privacy Notice

We will ask you to provide us with your personal data to allow us to provide an estimate for our services and to carry out your conveyancing.  The legal basis for this processing is our legitimate interests, namely proper administraction of our business.  We shall have a statutory obligation to retain records concerning Anti-Money Laundering checks that we have to carry out against all clients and there are circumstances where we may need to disclose some information to third parties re identity checks, law firms acting on the other side, our Bank, HM Revenue & Customs etc.. and may process your personal data where necessary for compliance with the legal obligation to which we are subject, to protect your interests or the interests of another natural person.

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We may process and disclose any of your personal data where necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims, whether in court proceedings or in an administrative or out of court procedure.  The legal basis for this processing is our legitimate interests, namely the protection and assertion of our legal rights, your legal rights and the legal rights of others.

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Personal data that we process for any purpose shall not be kept for longer than is necessary and if you decide to instruct us, we will retain your data whether the matter falls through or completes for a maximum of 15 years.

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You may instruct us to provide you with any personal information we hold about you and this is subject to the completion of a written request from you and the supply of appropriate evidence of your identity (we reserve the right to charge administrative costs for responding to the request) and reserve the right to withhold personal information that you request to the extent permitted by law.

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If you believe that we have not complied with your data protection rights, you can make a complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office (www.ico.org.uk).

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