Thankfully the property market is active and people are still buying and selling houses during this latest national lockdown.
While some potential buyers are waiting to see if the chancellor will extend the current Stamp Duty holiday beyond the end of March, lenders have been quick to respond to the lockdown by encouraging potential buyers who have smaller deposits with the reintroduction of 90% LTV mortgages.
So, if you’re planning to move or get on the property ladder this year, after finding your home and securing your mortgage, the next most important decision you make will be choosing your property lawyer to handle the process of buying your new home.
Conveyancing, the legal work undertaken during a property purchase, is a specialist area of the law, and by choosing a conveyancer best suited to your specific purchase, you can help to ease some of the stress involved.
Over the last couple of years, thanks to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), choosing the right property lawyer or conveyancer has become easier.
A more transparent market
The CMA first looked at competition in the legal market in 2016, when it called for a “step change in standards of transparency” so that lawyers’ clients could both understand the price and service they would receive, and compare providers.
As a result, new rules were introduced requiring all property lawyers to publish price, service and quality information on their websites, as part of an industry wide push to empower consumers and foster innovation and competition across the legal services market.
Homebuyers can expect all property lawyers to now display the following on their website:
- Cost information in a prominent place. Lawyers are required to provide examples of their fees that cover a broad range of services and transaction types including conveyancing.
- Service information. This will include information on conveyancing timescales and possibly third-party feedback.
- Regulatory information. You should be able to easily identify who regulates the firm you are hiring. For lawyers regulated by the CLC, this includes displaying the CLC secure badge in a prominent place.
- Complaints process. All lawyers will have to display details of their complaints process, including access to the Legal Ombudsman and redress information.
- Referral details. While lawyers do not need to disclose specific details of referral arrangements on their website, they must say if they enter into such agreements and the average fee, or range of fees, they pay.
Even if your chosen property lawyer doesn’t have a website, it doesn’t mean they are exempt from the new rules. They must still provide ‘other reasonable means on request’ which could include email, post or leaflets.
Is your conveyancer regulated?
When choosing who to handle your conveyancing, you should also check that the firm you are considering using is regulated by one of the legal sector regulators: www.legalchoices.org.uk
Particularly if there is a mortgage involved, you will need a regulated lawyer/firm to do your conveyancing for you.
Regulation ensures that, should something go wrong, you will be protected and have a clear way to seek redress. The websites of firms regulated by the CLC display a ‘secure badge’ which allows you to check the status of the firm with the regulator.
Referral fees
Finally, if you are buying your property through an estate agent, don’t feel obliged to take their recommendation on which conveyancer to use.
A survey carried out by YouGov found that three in five homebuyers who used a conveyancer recommended by their estate agent didn’t know if the lawyer was paying a fee for this recommendation.
Referral fees are fees that are paid by some conveyancers to estate agents for recommending, or referring clients to them. They are fairly common and are allowed by the industry, on the proviso, that you the consumer have been fully informed that on the back of a referral or recommendation a fee will be received by your estate agent.
Remember, it’s your choice and you should shop around to find the conveyancer best suited to you.
If you are about to start the process of buying or selling a home you can find a CLC regulated conveyancer on our website here.
Stephen Ward is director of strategy and external relations at the Council for Licensed Conveyancers
