If you’re thinking of starting a new chapter by investing in a new home, it’s natural to have a lot of questions. Many homebuyers are unsure whether they need a solicitor or if they can save themselves a little extra cash by going without. In this guide, we explain whether you need a solicitor when buying or selling a house.
A solicitor or licensed conveyancer is highly recommended when buying your house given the amount of legal work required. It is also likely your mortgage lender will require you to use a solicitor or licensed conveyancer. They will handle all formalities on your behalf, offering advice at every stage.
If you are remortgaging, a solicitor would need to be appointed in order to redeem the existing mortgage from your previous lender, as well as your Land Registry and your title checks. This is not the case, however, if you’re remortgaging with your current lender, as this qualifies as a product transfer and requires no additional legal work.
You should be appointing or instructing your solicitor as soon as your offer on the property is accepted. At this point, your solicitor will provide terms of engagement. These will outline the fees you are required to pay.
Your solicitor will also contact the seller’s solicitor and manage the communications on your behalf.
A property solicitor is on hand to manage all the legal aspects of the house buying process, such as transferring the ownership of your home. They will either charge you a flat rate for this, or take a percentage of the value of the property.
If you’re buying and selling a property at the same time, the same solicitor can deal with both transactions.
Newcastle Building Society is in partnership with the UK’s leading conveyancing panel management specialist, Legal Marketing Services. Where our products are offered on a fees assisted basis (where a fees assisted legal transfer is included in the features of the product), LMS will manage the conveyancing service provided by one of their appointed conveyancing firms.
We hope you found this guide useful. You may also want to consider other guides in the preparing to move section, including what is a homebuyers survey and renegotiating an accepted offer.
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