You’ve found your dream home, had your offer accepted, and your mortgage offer is in place. This is a huge milestone, but now another key professional steps into the spotlight: your conveyancing solicitor. While your mortgage advisor handles the finance, your solicitor manages the complex legal process of transferring the property from the seller’s name into yours.
The legal side of buying a home, known as “conveyancing,” can seem full of jargon and confusing steps. As of August 2025, a proactive and communicative legal team is vital to keeping your purchase on track. This guide demystifies your solicitor’s role and explains the key stages they will guide you through.
What is Conveyancing? Conveyancing is the legal term for the work involved in transferring the ownership of land or property from one person to another. Your solicitor’s primary job is to ensure the property you are buying has a “good title”—meaning the seller has the legal right to sell it and there are no hidden issues that could cause you problems later.
The Key Stages of the Conveyancing Process
1. Initial Instruction and Checks Once you hire a solicitor, they will send you a client care pack to sign and return. They will also need to formally verify your identity (for anti-money laundering regulations) and will ask you for money “on account” to pay for the property searches upfront.
2. Conducting Property Searches This is a critical investigative phase. Your solicitor will carry out several official searches to uncover important information about the property that isn’t obvious on a viewing. Key searches include:
- Local Authority Searches: Checks for information held by the local council, such as planning permissions, building regulation history, or whether any new roads or railways are planned nearby.
- Land Registry Searches: Confirms the seller legally owns the property by checking the official title deeds and plan held at HM Land Registry.
- Environmental Searches: Assesses the risk of issues like land contamination, flooding, or ground instability.
- Water and Drainage Searches: Confirms how the property gets fresh water and disposes of wastewater.
3. Reviewing Contracts and Raising Enquiries The seller’s solicitor will provide a draft contract, the property’s title deeds, and property information forms completed by the seller. Your solicitor will review every detail of this pack. Based on their findings from the searches and the provided documents, they will raise “enquiries” (a formal list of questions) with the seller’s solicitor to clarify any potential issues.
4. The Mortgage Offer and Report Your solicitor will receive a copy of your formal mortgage offer from the lender. They must review all the lender’s conditions to ensure they can be met. Once they are satisfied with all their investigations, they will provide you with a detailed “Report on Title,” summarising all their findings for you to review before you commit.
5. Exchange of Contracts: The Point of No Return This is the moment the transaction becomes legally binding. Once all enquiries are resolved, you will sign the contract and transfer your deposit to your solicitor. The solicitors for both the buyer and seller will then formally “exchange” the contracts. At this point, you cannot back out of the purchase without significant financial penalties, and a completion date is set.
6. Completion Day: Getting the Keys On the agreed completion day, your solicitor will request the funds from your mortgage lender and combine them with your deposit balance. They transfer this full amount to the seller’s solicitor. Once the seller’s side confirms they have received the money, they will authorise the estate agent to release the keys to you. Congratulations, you are now a homeowner!
After completion, your solicitor will handle paying any Stamp Duty Land Tax due on your behalf and will register you as the new owner with HM Land Registry.
Working with Your Mortgage Advisor While your mortgage advisor and solicitor have distinct jobs, they work in parallel. A good advisor can often recommend reputable and efficient local solicitors, helping you build a strong team to get your purchase over the line. For expert financial guidance to get you to the starting line of the legal process, get in touch with the team at Confidence in Finance.
