Conveyancing
Moving house can be a stressful experience - it is our aim to make the legal side of moving house stress-free.
The Firm has an excellent reputation for providing a speedy and competitive service without sacrificing quality.
Our work for you includes:
- Checking ownership of property
- Making searches of local and other authorities to safeguard your interests
- Advising you of the need to consult surveyors or other specialists
- Explaining any rights benefiting your property
- Informing you of any restrictions upon your ownership
- Making your contract to buy or sell legally binding
- Fixing a moving date for you
- Dealing with payment of stamp duty land tax and other disbursements on your behalf
- Registering your title at the Government Land Registry
Complex issues can occasionally arise on a basic sale or purchase. Our conveyancing team has the knowledge and experience to identify and overcome obstacles of this type and to offer you unbiased advice. We ensure that our advice is kept up to the minute by encouraging our staff to attend courses during the year on recent legal developments.
For a no obligation estimate of our fees for handling your conveyancing please turn to our conveyancing costs page.
Conveyancing Costs
Please contact Roger Petch or Ros Mann who will provide you with an accurate estimate of our fees for selling and buying property. The office has a dedicated e-mail address to which requests for estimates can be directed. The address is rogerpetch@macklunt.co.uk or rosmann@macklunt.co.uk
Written estimates will be sent out within 24 hours of request or we will reply by e-mail if you prefer.
We will have to make a number of payments on your behalf to others and you might find it helpful to have brief details of the main ones.
1. Stamp Duty Land Tax, a tax on house purchases, is payable at the following rates:
| £0 - £125,000 | nil |
| £125,001 - £250,000 | 1% |
| £250,001 - £500,000 | 3% |
| Over £500,000 | 4% |
2. Land Registry fees are also payable when you purchase a property in England and Wales. The fees vary from £40, for the cheapest property to £700 if you are buying for over £1 million.
3. Environmental Search - for a cost of about £40 this will reveal such matters as Masts, Pylons, Overhead transmission lines, landfill sites and whether or not the area is subject to flooding from a major river or the sea or if the property is in an area of natural subsidence.
4. Highway Enquiry. Not all Local Authorities are able to confirm whether the footpath or road directly abutting the property is maintainable at public expense. It may therefore be necessary to search the Highways Authority to seek confirmation of the status of the footpath/road to ensure proper rights of access exist to the property.
Our fee estimate will include all such payments and any search fees that need to be budgeted for.
If you are thinking of buying or selling Leasehold property, please specify this. There are usually other expenses that apply in Leasehold work, such as additional Stamp Duty Land Tax on new Leases and apportionments of service charges. We like to be able to estimate these for you at the outset.
Home Information Packs (HIPS)
The details of the payments to be made on your behalf listed above do not include the fees payable for a Local Search or a Drainage/Water Search. If you are buying a property these Searches will be included in the HIP that you will have received at the outset. The fees for these Searches will therefore have been paid by the Seller of the property.
Because of the way in which HIPs work it is possible that these Searches will be out of date and will have to be renewed. The cost of a basic Search varies greatly around the country but on average is in the region of £150 with additional enquiries costing about £10 or more.
The Local Search contains information about planning, local plans, roads, whether the property is in a conservation area, whether it is affected by a Tree Preservation Order. The Search is of the property itself so it will not disclose information about planning proposals in respect of other properties in close proximity to it although this information can be requested separately on payment of an additional fee.
A Drainage & Water Search costs on average about £50. It will not only confirm whether foul and surface water is connected to a public sewerage system and also the property is served by mains water and whether it is metered but also provides a useful plan showing the route of the services.
If you wish to sell your property then you will have to organise a HIP.
Apart from the Searches previously referred to it must contain a number of other documents including a sales statement, copies of your Deeds and a Home Energy Certificate. More information has to be provided if the property is leasehold including a copy of the Lease itself and service charge details.
Copies of certain other documents can be included but are not required.
The cost of a basic HIP is approximately £300 which as the Seller you will have to pay.
For more information on HIPs please click on this link which will take you to a legal update page which contains some information about HIPs which you will find useful whether you are selling or buying.
We are in a position to provide a HIP for you. It can be provided in a variety of ways. It can be a hard copy or can be provided electronically.
We are already operating a scheme which will assist in the preparation of HIPS. At the conclusion of any purchase we have been putting together a pack and retaining this so that some of the information that may be required will be readily available.
For more information on Home Information Packs see the Legal Update page here.
Fill in the details in the form below and click the send button to receive your quote. You can also phone or fax us if you prefer.