Conveyancing is the legal side of buying or selling land or houses.

In England & Wales, the professionals who deal with this are solicitors and licensed conveyancers. The difference between the two is that solicitors are qualified to do any kind of legal business (whether they are any good at it is another matter), while licensed conveyancers are restricted to land transactions. In practice, in nearly all transactions involving buying and selling houses there is virtually no difference between the two species in the quality or type of service you get. Both are heavily professionally regulated and are required to have insurance and compensation schemes to protect their clients; both will advise you if the proposed transaction is beyond their particular expertise or competence. We'll refer here to your heroic conveyancer as "your solicitor", but everything we say refers to both varieties.

What does the legal side of a house transaction involve? Why, apart from keeping the mortgage lender happy, do you need a lawyer to buy a house, but not a washing machine?

The big thing about land and houses which distinguish them legally from other things which are bought and sold like cars and washing machines is that you can't pick them up and take them away with you. This means that special rules have to be employed in order to establish that you own the land or that you have rights in respect of the land. These rights might be things like a mortgage, a lease, maybe a right of way over a shared parking area, or perhaps the right to run your cables and drains under a your neighbour's garden to the mains connections in the road. (They aren't the only class of legal object which you can't load into your car: others include a share in a partnership or the right to sue someone or an interest under a Family Trust. But that's another story.)

If you are buying a house, the lawyer's job is to make sure you buy the right property (it has been known for someone to be registered as the owner of the wrong property!), that the appropriate ownership rights are registered and that you know what rights other people have over the land; and that you are acquiring a readily marketable legal title: one that you are going to be able to sell on in due course.

The solicitor will do this by making checks against the property in public registers ("the searches"); by checking the legal title documents supplied by the seller's solicitor; and by asking questions of the seller or the seller's solicitors.
A solicitor isn't a surveyor. So he/she won't be advising on the physical condition of property or its price or the state of the central heating or other appliances.

In most house transactions, the solicitor won't inspect the property; at best he/she will receive a copy of the estate agent's particulars of sale which, with luck, will include a photograph of the house.

Some legal aspects of the house purchase do require a physical inspection of the property, so if you buying a house you need to be part of the legal process. If certain legal rights are reasonably apparent on a visual inspection of the property then these rights will bind you, even if they have not been disclosed in the legal papers or do not appear in any public register. In particular:

1. Check for evidence of adult people residing at the property other than the named sellers. Classic example is the granny in the annexe. She may not be registered as a joint-owner of the property but if she has contributed financially to the acquisition of the house - directly or indirectly (maybe a "discount" earned by her in respect of a former local authority property?) - then she may have acquired rights of ownership or occupation which will be binding on you.

2. Have a look around for other physical evidence that rights are or have been exercised against the property. The standard example is a worn footpath over the garden which might be evidence of a right of way. Tell your solicitor: remember, he/she won't be aware of it.

3. Check that the plan which will have been supplied to your solicitor by the seller's solicitor is right. Extract a copy of the plan from your solicitor and check it against the property on the ground. Check not just that the boundaries are correct and that you have got the right property, but also whether anything is overhanging/encroaching the boundary line. The garden shed which is 6 inches over the line of the boundary, or a jutting-out window which overhangs the boundary. They can be recipes for litigation and stressful relationships with the neighbours.

4. You need also to agree what fixtures and other items are being left by the seller. The seller's solicitor will supply a Fixtures, Fittings & Contents list and you need to go through it carefully. Is the TV aerial staying? What about the garden shrubs?

5. Have a think about Planning. Your solicitor's search of the local authority will reveal (amongst other things) the planning history of the property and whether there are pending planning applications or enforcement proceedings in respect of the property. But it won't reveal planning matters in the neighbourhood (or, it may do, but this can't be guaranteed). It's worth taking a trip to the local authority and having a word with the planning officers. They are often very knowledgable and can provide information which wouldn't necessarily show up on a search.

Points to consider if you are buying a property jointly with someone else

For the solicitor, the conveyancing process is, from start to finish, a process of great beauty and elegance. Few solicitors are immune to the charm of a barely legible, unpunctuated, antique conveyance containing oblique references to long lost plans which may have the effect of preventing the land being used for anything other than a quarry, or can resist the charm of tinkering with standard contract clauses so as to cover cases which can't possibly apply to the current transaction. For the solicitor with conveyancing in his/her heart, a property transaction is like a fine bottle of wine: to be savoured, rolled around in the mouth, and not rushed.

The client tends to see things differently. The big issues are:

1. When can we exchange?
2. When can we complete?
3. Why does it take so long?
4. How much will it cost?

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