Residential Conveyancing Q&As

This is very much an “it depends” question. Our record here is one hour from instructions to completion. However this is highly unusual and a more typical time is perhaps four weeks to exchange and two weeks after that for completion. You are likely to be able to move faster if the chain of buyers and sellers is short and the communications between solicitors is good.

HSBC have made a decision to use separate solicitors to act for them in a mortgage than are acting for you in the purchase. They believe this cuts down the possibility of fraud, but some believe there are other reasons. There is no doubt at all that this will slow down your purchase transaction considerably and make it more expensive

There may be. What you certainly cannot do is secretly hand over the money to your seller under the table nor can you divide the property up into say house and garden and pay separate amounts. However there is the possibility that as well as the house you are also buying perhaps carpets, curtains, furniture and loose white goods in which case it is perfectly acceptable to apportion some of the price to those items as long as the amount attributed is a fair second value for them. This is a good example of tax planning rather than tax avoidance.

In our opinion no. The Revenue have now said that they are illegal and they will track down and charge everybody who has used one of these avoidance schemes.

In the English law you buy your house warts and all. If there are problems you will inherit them. So if there are no rights of way, or somebody else’s mortgage is still secured on the house, or you do not own the garden then there is nothing you can do about it. This is why everything has to be checked out carefully – in America they call it “due diligence”. It is a vital part of the conveyancing process