Helping Innovate Property (HIP) – Blog, Housing Market News and Articles

In part 2 of our property conveyancing guide we look at what is involved in the closing stages of the home buying and selling process. You may wish to read Part 1 of the Property Conveyancing Guide here.

Signing the contract

Once your lawyer is satisfied that all of his enquiries have been dealt with; he has seen satisfactory search results and he is in possession of his copy of the formal offer of mortgage you will be invited to sign the contract and various other papers. This will either be in person or through the post. You should also receive a report, often called a “property report” at this stage which will set out any salient points arising from the searches and enquiries.

What is “conveyancing”? – Simply, it is the legal process of transferring ownership of land and property.

Instructing a lawyer

Once you have decided on a property, made an offer and had that offer accepted it’s time to instruct a lawyer. This can be either a solicitor or a licensed conveyancer. You should try not to pay over the odds for property conveyancing work. When obtaining a quote you should be given a fixed fee but ask for a list of any additional fees charged for different aspects of the transaction.

Some firms might charge an extra fee for completing the SDLT1 form for example, even though this will not need to be done in every case. These additional fees can really push up the final bill. An average bill for professional fees only (i.e not including addtional search fees, land registry fees etc) would probably be around £300-£400 at the moment.

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Have you ever wondered where you’ll get the most sunlight for your money? Many holiday home buyers are seeking maximum sunshine for minimum cost.

Even though Spring is just around the corner, us Brits aren’t guaranteed sunlight, as we suffer from grey skies and rain. You can understand why many holiday property owners have swapped Blackpool for a glamourous property in Spain.

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Top 40 accountants Bishop Fleming are calling on the government to be open and honest about its plans to reform National Insurance Contributions (NICs) paid by the self-employed.
The firm fears that the promised £145 a year saving for the self-employed from the scrapping of Class 2 NICs in April 2018 will be cancelled out by a corresponding tax rise. Whilst some will be better off, many could face an effective tax rise of up to 2%

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Canyon Fail!! Back to old tricks or did it stop?

I bought Mavic pro carbon sl wheels and a cassette on Monday from Canyon’s 12 days of Christmas sale. I completed the transaction and checked out and entered card details. Great I thought, Merry Christmas to me. I am recovering from surgery to my back and not able to ride at present, so it was a great pick me up and something to look forward to.

The reduction in the sale price was good, RRP now of said wheels is about £1600 and I paid just over £800 for wheels and a cassette. This is a big purchase for me and not something I take lightly. Looking around on tinternet, they are fairly new model I wasn’t going to find anywhere else at this time at that price. I can hear my dad whispering as I type…. ‘Son, it it is too good to be true… it normally is…’  How apt. Was this a sale or PR? I can only wonder.

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MOVING house requires specialist advice- now the CMA is making it easier for you to find a suitable legal provider.

Relocating or buying for the first time are some of the most stressful times in life, so it’s essential that you have the right legal advice to rely on when you need it most.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has conducted a market study into legal services and found that home buyers and those moving house often don’t have the information they need at hand to make the right decision.

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UK landlords surveyed who use a letting agent estimate that they save £1910 a year more than if they marketed directly to tenants, according to research by Endsleigh, one of the country’s leading specialist insurance providers for letting agents, landlords and young professionals.

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There’s always a lot of nervousness around buying or selling a house. It often comes during the process known as conveyancing. First time buyers in particular are often left feeling inadequate or bamboozled by such an elaborate process.

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Recent research by the Institute for Public Policy Research shows that most young people are suffering self-esteem issues from their inability to enter the housing market, their decisions in life about work, love and family are all being affected.

The fact is the many first time buyers are over 35 years old and over half of university graduates (53%) cannot afford to buy their own home.

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Looking around my in-laws’ family home, it was hard to know where to start. Decisions as to whether to keep, throw or consign to storage had to be made on every single treasured item collected over the past forty years.

With three empty bedrooms and an unruly garden on their hands, their decision to downsize made perfect sense. Yet the reality of squeezing the contents of an entire family home into a lovely (but far smaller) bungalow was starting to hit.

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House sales have plummeted almost 40 per cent since the peak of the boom five years ago,1 while UK property prices dropped 0.6 per cent in July.2 But according to a leading South London estate agent, Wooster & Stock, there are small steps vendors can take to increase the chance of a quick, smooth and profitable sale.

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