Conveyanver or solicitor?

Enigma80

Hi all,

Up until this morning I thought that when buying a house a conveyancer and solicitor did the same thing, and that you go with one or the other. However, after a brief chat with a friend I've been informed that I might need a solicitor as well and to check this because conveyancers will just do all the searches and don't get involved with the legal side of things. Is this correct?

My broker is sorting everything out for me including the conveyancers (quote about £550ish). He didn't mention anything about me needing to get a solicitor.

princessamy86

You don't need a solicitor as well, a licensed conveyancer deals solely with property transactions whereas a solicitor deals with all sorts of things, including property transactions. It's a one or the other job, a conveyancer may have more time to spend on your case as they don't deal with anything else-although you may feel more comfortable using a fully qualified solicitor.

Enigma80

princessamy86 wrote: »

You don't need a solicitor as well, a licensed conveyancer deals solely with property transactions whereas a solicitor deals with all sorts of things, including property transactions. It's a one or the other job, a conveyancer may have more time to spend on your case as they don't deal with anything else-although you may feel more comfortable using a fully qualified solicitor.

Thanks for that. Well we need to try and complete within 8 weeks if possible, so I'm hoping that conveyancers will be able to assist with that deadline.

princessamy86

Good luck with it all, make sure you check out whoever you instruct (be it conveyancer or solicitor), get recommendations for them etc. Also make sure they give you a fully itemised quote when you are comparing prices, as it's difficult to do it just off their legal fees.

Enigma80

princessamy86 wrote: »

Good luck with it all, make sure you check out whoever you instruct (be it conveyancer or solicitor), get recommendations for them etc. Also make sure they give you a fully itemised quote when you are comparing prices, as it's difficult to do it just off their legal fees.

Well it's all being done by our broker (a friend), he said it's the best deal he could get for us and has used them many times before.

princessamy86

That sounds ok then! You only need a slight trawl of this forum to see how many times people have been burned by going for the cheapest online conveyancer, so a known and trusted one recommended by a friend sounds fine.

Enigma80

Thanks, I'm just being really paranoid. We just want everything to go as planned.

Richard_Webster

I am a solicitor but have to agree with Princessmy86's comments - when you are buying or selling a house or flat the important thing is that it is someone recommended to you who knows what he is doing. The licensed conveyancers practicising as such (and not simply working for local solicitors) in my area are all very competent and respected locally by those of us who do conveyancing. There are also solicitors out there that we are not so sure about! The important thing is their competence rather than which qualification they have.

People also need to appreciate that people like me could also describe ourselves as conveyancers (even though I am a solicitor) because that is what we do, and other solicitors are litigators or commercial lawyers or whatever.

timmyt

Enigma80. Sorry your friend doesn't know what they are talking about. Like most people posting replies on this site.

A conveyancer is a generic description of the professional who handles the legal work in buying and selling a house.

They must be qualified, but most are not. You can have a solicitor (the best and legally trained in a wide area of law so can bring a lot to th etable), a legal executive. Not a solicitor and not as widely trained (often crash coursed in exams), but depending on how many years they have done the job, they can be experienced, licenced conveyancer (just does conveyancing, with no other area of law to draw on) and then clerks who can have done the job for years or only a few weeks and then head set sharons, the Team A Case worker nonesense that most people on the internet see when you see fees for £350 or under, who claim to have support from a solicitor. Like most internet bucket shops.

If you are not paying £500 plus VAT minimum for your conveyancing, and averaging £550 up to £250k price and an extra £100 for every £75k above, then worry, as cheap gets you cheap and nasty service.

princessamy86

Timmyt, I think your post saying people don't know what they're talking about on this board is a little unfair. Enigma asked if she needed both a conveyancer and a solicitor, and both myself and Richard Webster (a solicitor who posts for no personal gain on these boards, who is very well respected) stated that it didn't matter if it was solicitor or conveyancer that did the job for her, as long as they had been recommended and properly checked out. Prices vary across the country, so you stating a "minimum acceptable price" is not particularly helpful. Can you just have a think next time you post something, try and stick to the OP's question and don't throw accusations around that nobody knows what they're talking about.

onionz_2

To help out here...

"Conveyancer" is a generic term, which refers to a person doing conveyancing work. That person could be a Solicitor, Licensed Conveyancer etc.

Note that "Licensed Conveyancer" is a profession, whereas "conveyancer" does not by itself signify a person is qualified. An unqualified person doing conveyancing would have to be working under the supervision of a qualified person or persons who can carry out conveyancing. A lot of these super-cheap online bulk conveyancing firms operate with a minimum number of qualified staff and large numbers of unqualified clerks working under their supervision. With these setups, your file will only sporadically be looked at by a qualified lawyer.

Now to disagree with timmyt - a solicitor is not necessarily "the best". Recommendation is very important when choosing your legal representative. I rely a lot on word of mouth referrals for my work.

To further confuse matters, I am a member of a rarely mentioned profession - I am a "Notary Public". I qualified as a solicitor, and then acquired further qualifications to practise as a notary. I carry out conveyancing work as a notary, whereas most notaries also practise as solicitors, and if they do conveyancing work they do so wearing their solicitor hat.