How Long Does the Entire Conveyancing Process Take?

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The conveyancing phase is a crucial part of the entire buying and selling process of any property. 

If you want any transaction to go smoothly, it needs to undergo conveyancing just like any other property on the market. However, don’t expect this to happen overnight or even in a matter of days. This article should help you get a better idea of how long the entire conveyancing process takes and what to expect from it.

The Conveyancing Process

Generally speaking, conveyancing is going to take anywhere between 8-12 weeks if it goes without any issues. The entire process itself involves a lot of moving parts in the form of documents and paperwork. More often than not, there are many parties involved, not just the buyer and the seller.

The main reason why commercial and residential conveyancing takes a long time to complete is because of several factors that can slow down the sale, which is often beyond the solicitor’s control. Conveyancing firms aren’t usually the ones causing the delay. In fact, it’s in the conveyancing firms’ best interests to process things quickly so they can accommodate more clients. To better understand why the process takes too long, let’s break it down, step by step.

1. Pre-Contract Work (1-2 Weeks)

The moment you accept an offer for a house, or you’re the one who made the offer, and it got accepted, the conveyancing process begins. Both the buyer and seller will need to appoint their own conveyancing solicitors to help them obtain and review the legal documents involved in the sale. If you’re the buyer, your solicitor will speak to the other party’s solicitor for the draft contract and start local searches. This alone could take more or less ten days. However, when local authorities miss their deadlines, this could take up to several more weeks.

2. Mortgage Offer (2-4 Weeks)

Hopefully, before you made an offer on the property, you had a Mortgage Agreement in Principle in place. As your solicitor is processing the searches and the contract, next comes your mortgage offer, which relies on your mortgage lender. This process takes about a month from your application.

3. Drafting a Contract (2-10 Weeks)

While all the other processes are happening, the next step is drafting a contract. This is one of the most arduous parts of the conveyancing process because you need to work with your solicitor to get all the necessary paperwork from the land registry and the seller’s conveyancer. You may have the results of the local searches already done by now, which could also raise some issues that need to be resolved.

4. Exchanging of Contracts (2-4 Weeks)

After all the other processes are done, it’s time to exchange contracts. This could take a week or two or even more, depending on how fast both parties are able to exchange and review the contracts. Even if you finished reviewing everything, you wouldn’t be able to proceed until the seller is also done reviewing their contract. After review and completion, only then can you set a completion date.

Conclusion

Looking at the entire conveyancing process, there’s very little you can do to speed up the process since you and your solicitor can’t control everything and everyone involved. The least you can do is to meet your deadlines and work with a reputable conveyancer in Manchester.

Conveyancing Expert is an online conveyancing practice providing quality conveyancing services. As a team of legal professionals, we make sure to guide all our clients throughout the entire process. Reach out to us when you need trusted conveyancing services in the UK. Get a free conveyancing quote today!

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