THE LEGAL ASPECTS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT BUYING/SELLING A PROPERTY

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By Ross Ward, a partner specialising in residential conveyancing at leading local solicitors, Taylor&Emmet LLP. Ross enjoys a large portfolio of clients and has carried out transactions on every type of property imaginable, from council houses, to apartments, farms and multimillion-pound estates. In this month’s column he answers some of the most common questions asked about moving home.   What is meant by synchronisation of exchange of contracts? If you are both selling and buying a property and want to move from one house to the other on the same day, your solicitor will ensure that the contracts are exchanged on both houses at the same time. By talking to the solicitors of both your buyer and your seller, your solicitor will ensure you do not end up with two houses – or with none at all!    If there are a number of related transactions in the chain, it may be some time before everyone is ready. This can often cause frustration, as you may be waiting on other links in the chain before your solicitor can arrange the synchronised exchange. Once exchange has taken place, all parties are committed to moving on the agreed completion date, which is written into the contracts. My solicitor has told me that he is going to check the title deeds of the property I am buying. What does this entail? Most properties are recorded at the Land Registry. The vendor’s solicitor will send your solicitor a contract for him to examine and approve with a copy of the Land Registry certificate. This will reveal whether the property is freehold or leasehold and if the latter is the case, the length of the lease and how much ground rent is payable.    It will confirm that the vendors are, in fact, the actual owners of the property and if there are any mortgages registered against it. Your solicitor will need to ensure that these are repaid on or before you complete the purchase. The certificate will also reveal whether the property has the benefit of, or is subject to, any rights of way and if there are any restrictions on what you can or cannot do there. For example, it may be stated that no trade or business can be run from the property.    There will be a plan of the property attached to the certificate, which your solicitor will normally either send you a copy of, or show you when you sign the contract, to make sure that it corresponds to what you think you are buying.    Finally, once your solicitor has had a chance to view the contract and the certificate, he will write to the vendor’s solicitor to clear up any additional queries that have come to light. I am buying a property in a conservation area. What effect will this have on any improvements I plan to make to the house? A conservation area is somewhere the council feels is of special architectural or historical interest. The search your solicitor should have carried out will confirm if your house is located in such an area.    The local planning department will be particularly concerned with preserving or enhancing the character of the area whenever they are considering a planning application and any request to extend or change the use of your property will be scrutinised more carefully. Generally, planners are in favour of preservation and exceptions to the normal planning rules are severely restricted. Any tree in a conservation area is also automatically protected as though it has a preservation order on it.    If you wish to carry out alterations to the house you are buying, I recommend that you speak to the local council’s planning officer before committing to the purchase.