Conveyancing - England and Wales

England and Wales

In England and Wales, this is usually done by a solicitor or a licensed conveyancer. Either may employ or supervise an unqualified conveyancer. The domestic conveyancing market is price competitive, with a high number of firms of solicitors and conveyancing companies offering a similar service. It is possible for someone to carry out their own conveyancing.

Under English and Welsh law agreements are not legally binding until contracts are exchanged. This affords both the advantage of freedom before contract, but also the disadvantage of wasted time and expense in the event the deal is not done.

The normal practice is for the buyer to negotiate an agreed price with the seller then organise a survey and have the solicitor (or conveyancer) carry out their searches and pre-contract enquiries. The seller's solicitor or conveyancer will prepare the draft contract to be approved by the buyer's solicitor. The seller's solicitor will also collect and prepare property information to be provided to the buyer's solicitors, in line with the Law Society's National Protocol for domestic conveyancing.

It takes on average 10–12 weeks to complete a conveyancing transaction, but while some transactions are quicker, many take longer. The timescale is determined by a host of factors - legal, personal, social and financial. During this period prior to exchange of contracts (exchange being the point at which the transaction becomes legally-binding) either party can pull out of the transaction at any time and for any reason, with no legal obligation to the other. This gives rise to a risk of gazumping and its converse, gazundering.

Conveyancing has been identified as one of the key targets for companies looking to take advantage of the changes in the law (originally planned to be introduced in October 2011, but which is likely to be delayed for several months), with the introduction of the Legal Services Act. This enables non-lawyers to own law firms, and is a significant threat to solicitors that today rely on income from conveyancing. The reason why this area of law has been targeted is because it is highly process-driven and therefore perceived as being more easily managed by non-lawyers. Recent trends indicate that instead of new firms that will actually carry out the work, instead, panel organisations are being created who take the instruction and pass the work to a panel of solicitors and take a fee from the client for this distribution service.

These new panels employ "progressors" whose role is to merely contact solicitors that are actually transacting the instruction to check on progress. This raises the issue of client-confidentiality and what information may be provided to such non-connected third parties. These progressors have received the moniker of Legal Naggers (or Laggers).