Buying or selling your home is one of the biggest decisions you will make in your lifetime and one of the most complex processes you will be involved in.
Conveyancing is better left to the professionals, as it comes with potential risks and complications that can have a big impact on the time taken to complete the process. Eight weeks is the average time for completion; however, there are many factors that can slow this down and a few that can speed it up.
Delays to completion
There are more factors leading to delays than ways to speed up the process. The delays in a property transaction are often out of the control of your conveyancer, as they are usually due to a particular complexity related to the property, waiting for documents from other parties, missing information, and/or issues such as the loss of title deeds or the chain collapsing.
Local authority searches by the conveyancer are needed to determine who owns or is responsible for the roads or sewers. Planning applications need to be checked, and water and other utility service providers identified. These searches can take as little as two days or, in some areas, up to eight weeks.
It is important to remember that if you are in a chain, every party in the chain must go through the same process as you; therefore, the margin for error and delay is significant. The chain will only move as quickly as the slowest link. Should any of the parties involved pull out of the process, the entire chain will collapse.
Mortgages, valuations and surveys are all time-consuming processes that can slow things down. Affordability checks for mortgages take considerable time and if a survey reveals any issues with the property, they must be dealt with and may even result in a renegotiation.
How to speed up the conveyancing process
The most effective way of speeding up the conveyancing process is by choosing the right conveyancer. A good conveyancer is the main influencer in how quickly things progress. Organisations such as Sam Conveyancing give you access to a full range of online conveyancing services from the best conveyancing solicitors available. In addition to having a specialist legal advisor who can concentrate on the legal aspects, a member of the SAM team will work with you to make sure nothing slows down the process.
Be prepared and make the right choices; for example, buyers should ideally have a mortgage offer in principle and deposit in place before making an offer. Whether you are buying or selling, having all your documentation and information sorted in advance can really make a difference.
