"The best way to enjoy a fast conveyancing journey is to acknowledge that you, the home seller, share a portion of the responsibility for ensuring the process runs smoothly"
- Ruth Beeton - Home Sale Pack
Home Sale Pack has highlighted eight essential tips that will help home sellers overcome the biggest challenges involved with the conveyancing process and help them to sell their homes with maximum speed and efficiency.
Conveyancing is a complex process full of potential pitfalls that can take an age to overcome and cause significant delays. But with some expert insight into avoiding and overcoming the biggest snaps in the process, sellers can whip through the process at lightning speed.
Be present & available
When you enter the conveyancing process, you can speed up the process significantly by being present and available as much as possible. Always try and make yourself available to answer phone calls and respond to requests from your solicitor. This also means ensuring that you’re not out of reach for any length of time by, for example, going on holiday while conveyancing is underway.
Be proactive
As well as being present, a lot of time can be saved by being proactive. When documents are sent your way to sign, sign and return them as quickly as you can. But you can also take it upon yourself to check in with your solicitor and estate agent on a weekly basis.
You should also consider providing any potential buyers with the vital documents and information they require upfront as soon as they express interest in your home. This means they don’t have to go off and find the information for themselves while you simply have to wait.
Be fast out of the blocks
If you can start the conveyancing process promptly, you give yourself a better chance of getting the contracts signed in the timeframe you desire. Instruct your solicitor as early as you can - this means they can open a file and begin some of the preliminary work such as verifying your identity, ready to start conveyancing in full as soon as you receive an offer.
Choose your solicitor wisely
A good solicitor is a lifesaver during the conveyancing process. You should avoid hiring anyone that appears slow or disorganised. Take notice of how quickly they respond to your initial reach-out, and how soon they request a meeting to gain all of the necessary information. You shouldn't be left waiting around. Don’t select a solicitor based purely on price, and certainly don’t automatically select the one recommended by your estate agent.
Self-source as much information as you can
You will often be asked to provide different types of paperwork about yourself and the property - photo ID, gas certificates, title deeds, and so on. Try and dig as much of this documentation out as you can find as soon as you start thinking about selling your home. Those you can’t find can be replaced, but it will cause delays.
Don’t forget your onward purchase
If you’re selling, you’re also likely buying a new home. Make sure your solicitor is on top of both parts of the process for you. They should be proactively talking to and sourcing information from your buyer’s solicitor as well as your seller’s solicitor to make sure there is nothing currently required from you.
Get your finances in order
Thinking about your onward purchase, you need to be on top of your mortgage situation to ensure no delays in your purchasing process have a negative impact on your selling process. If, for example, your deposit is a gift, this should be made clear to your mortgage provider straight away. They will likely require a signature from the source confirming that it’s a gift, not a loan, and to safeguard against money laundering. This can take time, so get started on it straight away.
Ask your solicitor about the correct shortcuts
Conveyancing is a legal process and cannot therefore be skipped or skirted around at any point. It can, however, be sped up with some insider knowledge. For example, the time it takes to complete a local authority search differs widely from one local authority to another. Ask your solicitor how long they expect your local authority to take, and whether it might be worth hiring a private company to conduct the search instead, as they tend to get the job done much quicker.
Ruth Beeton, Co-Founder of Home Sale Pack, says: “The best way to enjoy a fast conveyancing journey is to acknowledge that you, the home seller, share a portion of the responsibility for ensuring the process runs smoothly.
"Yes, your solicitor will do their part in guiding you through and taking care of the lion’s share of the work, but it tends to be those sellers who assume they can just sit back and wait for it to be completed who end up suffering the longest, most drawn out experiences.
"You shouldn’t have to be working hard, but you do need to be doing your part. This means digging out the right paperwork from your files, actively checking in with your agent and solicitor, and ensuring that they are earning their fee by doing all they can to make the process as efficient as possible.”
