Moving House Solicitor

Expert solicitors moving house East Yorkshire and York area 

Moving house can be daunting. By having an expert conveyancing solicitor to represent you, you stand the best chance of avoiding problems and completing your transaction without avoidable delays. 

At Lockings Solicitors, we specialise in conveyancing, the legal work for moving house, and we have a high level of expertise in all types of property sales and purchases. We know how important it is to avoid hold-ups that could derail your house move and if difficulties arise, we have the experience to resolve them promptly and efficiently. 

We provide an exceptional level of service to our clients and we will ensure that you are kept up to date with progress and that you can contact us easily if you need to discuss your transaction or ask us any questions.  

We have a conveyancing portal which many of our clients choose to use. This is a secure platform where you can check on the stage that has been reached and see if there is anything that needs your attention, such as providing identification or filling in forms.  

If you are thinking of moving house and you would like to speak to us to ask questions or discuss costs, we would be happy to hear from you. We offer a FREE initial chat with no obligation. Call us on 01482 300 200, email us at welcome@lockings.co.uk or fill in our Free Online Enquiry and we will call you back promptly. We have offices in Beverley, Hull and York and deal with conveyancing in East Yorkshire and beyond. 

Our house move services 

We provide a full range of property services, including the following: 

• Property sales data-ccp-props=”{"201341983":0,"335559739":160,"335559740":259}”> 
• Property purchases
• Newbuild purchases 
• First time buyers<span data-ccp-props=”{“201341983″:0,”335559739″:160,”335559740″:259}”> 
• Leasehold sales 
• Leasehold purchases 
• Property transfer
• Remortgages 

If you would like to ask us about our services or for an estimate of the likely charges, please give us a call. Alternatively, you can download our free conveyancing fees guide. 

The conveyancing process 

The conveyancing process goes through several stages to complete the legal work necessary to transfer a property from one person to another. Below are the main steps involved in a purchase. 

Obtaining a mortgage offer in principle 

By securing a mortgage offer upfront, sellers will know that you are a serious buyer and that you are ready to proceed. Mortgage lenders will generally provide an offer of a mortgage offer in principle before you have found somewhere to buy. This means that you can go through the application process early on so that any issues are dealt with well in advance of finding your new home.  

Once you find the right property, you will need to advise your mortgage lender of the details and they will issue the mortgage offer to your solicitor. 

Instructing moving house solicitors 

You can also instruct solicitors to represent you early on so that they can carry out the preliminary work that they are required to do by law, including verifying your identity. If you ask us to act for you in your conveyancing, we will open a file and ensure that we are ready to proceed as soon as you find somewhere to buy.  

Contract papers, enquiries and searches 

Once a sale is agreed, the seller’s solicitor will put together a contract package to be sent to us. We will go through the papers as soon as they are received and go back to the seller’s solicitor with any enquiries that we have. We will let you have copies of the property information and fixtures and fittings forms so that you can check that everything is as you are expecting. 

We will also apply for the necessary searches. These will reveal a range of information, including in respect of planning, drainage, enforcement notices and tree preservation orders. If any significant issues are revealed we will report them to you, ask questions of the seller’s solicitor if necessary and confirm with your lender that the results are acceptable to them. 

Mortgage offer 

Your mortgage offer will be sent to us during this preliminary period and we will need to receive it before contracts can be exchanged. Provided you secured a mortgage offer in principle, the main issue to be dealt with will be the lender’s valuation. They will ask their surveyor to check that the property is sufficient security for the debt. 

Survey 

You should have your own survey carried out if you are buying a property and not rely on the lender’s valuation report which, in some cases, could simply be a ‘drive-by’ valuation. 

Surveys are available with different levels of detail. You can choose the appropriate survey based on the age of the property, its condition, the type of property and what you intend to do with it.  

If it is less than around fifty years old, in good condition, of ordinary construction and you do not intend to carry out major alterations, then a Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) Level 2 survey may be sufficient. This is a visual inspection of the property that will assess the overall condition and point out any obvious defects.  

If the property is older, in poor condition, unusual or you will be making a substantial alteration, you are advised to have an RICS Level 3 or full structural survey carried out.  

When you receive your survey results it is open to you to renegotiate the price if they reveal any major faults that need rectifying. 

Exchange of contracts 

Once all of the preliminary work has been completed, it is time to decide on a completion date and exchange contracts. As a buyer, you will need to pay a deposit on exchange of contracts, usually of 10%. If you are selling a home as well, the deposit on your sale can be used on your purchase. Otherwise, you will need to let us have cleared funds in readiness for exchange. 

Completion dates will be discussed prior to exchange and you will need to check that you can book removals for the suggested day. This is particularly important if you are tying in a sale. 

The exchange of contracts takes place over the phone with the seller’s solicitors and the transaction becomes legally binding at this point. If you were to pull out after exchange, you would lose your deposit. This is also the stage at which the completion date is set. 

Following exchange of contracts, we will order your mortgage advance and you will need to let us have the balance of money to complete. 

Completion 

On the day of completion, we will send the remainder of the purchase price to the seller’s solicitor. Once their bank confirms that they have received this, they will notify the estate agent that the keys can be released to you.  

After completion 

In the days following completion, we will arrange for registration of your purchase and mortgage with HM Land Registry. 

Contact our solicitors for moving house East Yorkshire and the York area 

If you are thinking of buying or selling a property, our house moving solicitors can represent you. 

Please feel free to ring us for a FREE initial chat on 01482 300 200, email us at welcome@lockings.co.uk or complete a Free Online Enquiry and we will call you back promptly. We have offices in Beverley, Hull and York and deal with conveyancing in East Yorkshire, the York area and beyond.