Conveyancing - Doing my own! Leasehold advice required

tc1960

I have been interested to read the forum threads regarding DIY conveyancing. Most advice seems reasonable, however there are some circumstances where the process is so simple it would be hard not to save the solicitors fees. Last year I did my own conveyancing when selling a freehold house with no mortgage to a first time buyer (no chain) It cost me £12 (Land Registry fee) plus paper, copying, envelopes and stamps! I researched the process from library books, downloaded all the forms I needed from the internet, in total probably spent about 6 hours collating paperwork etc. saving conveyancing charges of at least £400. I would only recommend DIY for no mortgage, no chain properties. I am now about to sell a leasehold maisonnette and intend to do my own conveyancing. I am finding it difficult to come across any specific information for Leasehold property and would welcome any advice relating to the differences in the process compared to a Freehold property. In particular drafting the contract or dealing with the Freeholder. Any conveyancers prepared to spill the beans or has anybody else been prepared to go their own way without being intimidated by the doom mongers.

Smashing

tc1960 wrote: »

without being intimidated by the doom mongers.

Well, we've got them in spades here.:beer:

subjecttocontract

I've done my own conveyancing on freehold properties a few times and enjoyed doing it but, I wouldn't consider it with leasehold. Every lease is different, with different service charges, management company set ups, managing agents, freeholders, etc. Far to many variables for me. It only costs £300-£500 to get someone who knows what they are doing.....seems like a bargain to me.

tc1960

If I was buying I would agree with you. Where is the risk as a seller provided I receive the sale money before completing the sale. Why is everybody so intimidated by a bit of jargon.

chappers

Doom monger here, whilst it is perfectly podssible to do your own conveyancing, you are taking a lot of responsibility upon yourself and with it potential risk.The one thing you lack is professional indemnity and should anything be found to be wrong possibly in future sales you could find yourself facing hefty bills/costs to sort it.
I would advise extreme caution particularly where a lease is concerned

tc1960

Please give me some specific examples rather than generalities. The risks you mention, if any, pass to the new buyer and his conveyancer. I accept that I need to make sure there are no unusual conditions in the lease, the property is only 20 years old and the lease is straightforward. Any other problems would show up by the time of completition. Again so long as I get my sale money where is the problem?

Richard_Webster

As far as I can see the main problems in doing your own conveyancing are:

1. If you have a mortgage your lender will want to instruct a solcitor to protect its interests. Your buyer's solcitor will not accept your undertaking to pay off your mortgage on completion. You might not comply and the buyer would be stuck - so he needs a solicitor's undertaking (we get struck off if we don't comply) to do this. The costs of employing that solicitor will reduce the savings in doing it yourself.
2. If a buyer's solicitor deals with another solicitor or licensed conveyancer he is entitled to assume that that solcitor/conveyancer does represent the person who actually owns the property and that the contract and transfer deed have actually been signed by the seller. If the seller acts for himself then if I was acting for a buyer I would require the seller to come to my office to exchange contracts and complete bringing satisfactory ID with him. Otherwise how do I know that I am paying the money to the right person? If the seller would not do that then I would have to charge my client more for either travelling to see the seller in person or getting another solcitor more local to him to do so. My client might quite reasonably feel cross that this was the case and seek to recover the extra from the seller.

A leasehold maisonette will mean more questions to answer and the need to obtain information possibly from the freeholder/managing agent etc. That in itself on a sale would not necessarily mean the work was more difficult, because apart from the points mentioned above, it is essentially dealing with the buyer's solicitor's questions. With any transaction there could be points that a lay seller would not understand or could not answer properly. Often these will not occur at all, but I guess they are just a bit more likely to occur with a maisonette than with a house.

tc1960

Thankyou, a constructive reply at last. There is no mortgage so that problem does not arise. Fair point about ID, most estate agents (mine included) required proof of ID (passport) before proceeding with the sale anyway. If I have to go to the buyers conveyancer to sign it is still a lot cheaper than paying my own! With regards to info from managing agents, I don't think I'm any worse off than a conveyancer would be. In fact it looks as though I am going to save their standard info charge of £180 as I already have copies of all the relevant documents or they have to provide them anyway as I am a leaseholder. Is there any difference in the contract itself for a leasehold property? Or do you just exchange the word 'freehold' for 'leasehold'?

BobProperty

Smashing wrote: »

Well, we've got them in spades here.:beer:

Is "spade" the correct collective noun for doom-mongers?

Richard_Webster

It would probably be OK just to substitute "Leasehold" for "Freehold". The burdens on the property need to be the terms of the lease and those matters contained in the [insert title number of leasehold title] title registers. If the buyer's solicitor does not like the wording he will try to amend it!

There are a few other provisions a solicitor would put in to add some extra protection in unlikely circumstances but frankly it is going to get into a law lesson if I go on....

You will have to accept that if you do it yourself it will probably be OK but in a few cases you will get it wrong and that is why most people pay solicitors to avoid mistakes they would not know about...

chappers

tc1960 wrote: »

The risks you mention, if any, pass to the new buyer and his conveyancer.

Not if you are found to be negligent at your stage of the conveyancing.

My Brother-in-law(who is a solicitor incidently, and doesn't even attempt to do his own conveyancing)was trying to buy a house and for some reason, the solicitor doing the conveyancing, had to look into the past sales of the house and it turned out that a piece of land directly in front of the property (across which access was necessary to get to the house)had been incorrectly registered to the house, several sales previous.
Once this came to light there was an almighty caffuffle involving tracking down previous owners of the property money changing hands between previous owners and he ended up walking away before the whole thing had been sorted out, and as far as I know 2 years later the property is still unsold.
Now if that was you without any proffesional indemnity who wrongly registered that piece of land there may be cynics within the legal system who may say that you, when doing your own conveyancing registered/stole that piece of land , for financial gain/to ease the sale as there was no right of access across it..