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The work will be carried out by a dedicated team at one of our panel of firms of solicitors. You will be allocated a named person to deal with your transaction and all work will be supervised by a senior conveyancer. You will be given a direct dial number for your dedicated team, who will assist you throughout the progress of your transaction and be available to take your calls/queries between 8.30am - 8.00pm Monday - Friday and 10.00am-4.00pm Saturday and Sunday (excluding bank holidays).
On average between 4-6 weeks, but it can vary depending on factors particular to your property and the situation of all parties involved in any chain of transactions.
Yes, what we quote is what you will pay, subject to any unusual searches which might be relevant to your property and which you will be notified of in advance - for instance, if your property is located in an old mining area, then a mining search might be advisable. Also if your property is leasehold there may be third party charges to pay to the landlord (see below). No charges will be incurred without your prior consent.
No, all of our panel of solicitors are approved by the major lending institutions, so there is no duplication of charges between you and your lender. The solicitor will act for you and your lender for the price quoted to you.
The cost of conveyancing searches is always the same, whichever solicitor you use to do your conveyancing work. The cost of the searches is determined by government departments and local authorities. Different local authorities however charge different search fees and your panel solicitor will be able to tell you the exact search fee for the relevant area.
Apart from being competitively priced for NHS staff, the service is also tailored for NHS staff to ensure that shift patterns and unsocial working hours do not hinder the progress of your transaction. Our call centre for quotations and instructions is open 24 hours a day, every day of the week. Our panel of solicitors work through until 8.00pm on weekdays and until 4.00pm at the weekend. To try to minimise the need to constantly call you to inform you of progress, there is a web tracking system so that you can log onto the internet at any time of the day to check how the transaction is progressing. You will be provided with a user name and password for this. The website is updated within the hour whenever a key stage in the transaction is reached. If you do not have access to the internet, then rest assured our panel of solicitors will still be keeping you informed at every stage of the transaction. You can also be sent a text update direct to your mobile phone, to ensure that you are not interrupted with administrative calls during work hours but can receive messages and call back, if necessary, when convenient.
If you or the other party withdraw from the transaction prior to exchange of contracts (the legally binding stage of the transaction), our panel of solicitors will waive their legal fees for work carried out by them to date.You will only need to pay for disbursements which have actually been incurred to date (such as search fees) and which cannot be reclaimed from a third party. We do not charge you any insurance protection premium for this cover and peace of mind. Many legal firms can offer you this insurance cover but at an additional cost.
If the property you are buying or selling is leasehold, there is an additional fee of £75.00 plus VAT and you should be aware that there may be additional fees due to other parties, such as management companies and landlords. In particular the landlord or management company of the property will ask you to pay a fee to register your ownership with them once you have completed your purchase.
You can access the explanatory guide on the nhsconsortium.com website.
Please contact our call centre who will arrange for a specialist quote for you.
Please report your uncertainty or any fault to the call centre and we will take your details to ensure your request is processed. If you subsequently receive two copies of our introductory letter, then please just discard one of them! We will ensure the remainder of the process is not duplicated.
Where we receive your website instruction form before 3pm on any working day, we will send our introductory letter out to you the same day by first class post. Where we receive your website instruction form after 3pm on any working day, we will send our introductory letter out to you on the next working day by first class post. If you have not received an introductory letter from us within 24-48 hours, please call our call centre who will re-send the introductory letter by post or fax to you.
Where we receive your call before 3pm on any working day, we will send our introductory letter out to you the same day by first class post. Where we receive your call after 3pm on any working day, we will send our introductory letter out to you on the next working day by first class post. If you have not received an introductory letter from us within 24-48 hours, please call our call centre who will re-send the instruction letter by post or fax to you.
You should receive initial correspondence from the panel of solicitors nominated to deal with your transaction within 2 working days of receipt of your signed instructions. If you have not heard anything in this timeframe, again please call our call centre and we will chase this for you.
Buying and/or selling a property can be a hectic and confusing time - so we have compiled this step by step guide to explain the various stages of your transaction and highlight the main stages you will need to understand. If at any stage you do not understand any of the underlined terms, please click on the word to see a full explanation. BUYING A PROPERTY
This is the date that ownership of the property passes from the seller to the buyer. The seller and buyer should discuss dates between themselves and then notify their respective solicitors who will try to fit in with the suggested date. If there are unforeseen delays, for example, if the buyer does not receive a search or mortgage offer in time then the completion date may have to be revised. For this reason you should not make any firm commitments such as giving notice on a job, arranging removals or making holiday bookings without first contacting your solicitors so that they can advise you of the situation. Only
when contracts are exchanged and a completion date is fixed can
you be virtually guaranteed that the completion date will be met.
It is not essential for you to be present on the completion date
but if you are going to be away, then you should let us know so
that we can arrange for one of your relatives (or ourselves) to
act for you through a Power of Attorney. This
is the agreement between the buyer and the seller. It sets out the
main terms of what has been agreed such as the property, the price
and the names of the parties. It also deals with the process if
something goes wrong. Rather than making the buyer and the seller
meet to sign the same contract, the seller's solicitor draws up
two copies of the same contract, and each party signs their own
copy. When both parties are ready to legally commit, the two contracts
are exchanged. This causes a lot of confusion. When most people talk about the deposit they mean the part of the purchase price that the buyer is putting down him/herself (i.e. usually the difference between the amount of the mortgage and the purchase price). When Solicitors talk about the deposit they are talking about the money that is handed over to the seller's Solicitors upon exchange of contracts. This might be the same amount, but it might not. On
exchange of contracts the seller can insist on receiving from the
buyer a 10% deposit of the purchase price. However as many people
are not contributing as much as 10% to the purchase, reduced deposits
are often agreed. You should be aware, however, that if you are
a buyer and you pay a reduced deposit then fail to complete the
purchase through no fault of the seller, you will, under the terms
of the contract, be required to make the deposit up to the full
10%. You may also have to pay compensation to the seller if the
seller loses out through your failure to complete. This
is a very important moment. From the minute contracts are exchanged,
the matter becomes binding. From that moment on, the seller must
sell, the buyer must buy, it must be done at the price stated in
the contract. Until contracts are exchanged NOTHING is binding -
either party can walk away from the transaction with no penalty.
This
is a list of the items at the property which are either included
or excluded from the agreed price. This form is completed at an
early stage by the seller and sent to the buyer, so that both parties
understand what is included in the selling price (carpets, light
fittings etc).
A central
body established in 1925 that retains records of who owns the land,
and under what conditions. Temporary
ownership of the property but not the land on which it stands. When
the lease expires ownership of the property reverts back to the
freeholder. This is a fixed cost that covers the cost of the time that the panel solicitors spend on your conveyancing. If
asale or purchase does not complete then the panel solicitors will
not charge you any legal fees, only the disbursements they have
incurred (searches, post, copying etc). This is a list of questions about the property, which are sent to the local authority. It covers such items as, whether the road serving the property should be maintained by the council, whether there have been any planning applications on the property etc. The search is against the property only and does not cover the surrounding area. A word of warning - the search will not show any Planning Permissions or matters affecting land or buildings outside the boundaries of the property. It is important that you let us know at the start of the transaction if you require information on any particular point or if you wish us to ask any particular questions of the local authority. We would not normally advise a buyer to exchange contracts without a satisfactory local authority search. The
cost of the local authority search varies from one local authority
to another. This is a loan to help you buy the house. The mortgage is 'attached' to your title deeds, and means that you cannot sell the property without paying it off at the same time. Contracts should not be exchanged until an acceptable written mortgage offer has been received. It is not enough that you have had verbal confirmation from your bank or building society that they will grant you a mortgage. In many cases a mortgage may be supported by an endowment, pension or mortgage protection policy and in these circumstances your panel solicitor must confirm to the lender before exchange of contracts whether there are existing policies or arrangements have been made for new policies to be brought into effect immediately contracts are exchanged. If
you are selling, your panel solicitor will contact your mortgage
lender at an early stage to ask how much it will cost to pay off
the mortgage - and they will send you a copy of this figure. You
may find that you will be charged a financial penalty if you pay
the mortgage off early. This is a consideration to be taken into
account when agreeing a completion date, and often applies when
your existing mortgage was set up on a fixed rate, or you obtained
a 'cashback' figure. This is a questionnaire about the property completed by the sellers. It covers such items as guarantees, neighbour disputes and boundaries. If you are buying then time can be saved if you tell your panel solicitors at an early stage if there are any particular points about the property that concern you. They can then ask the seller's solicitors the relevant questions. If
you are selling and the buyer's solicitor asks a question to which
you do not wish to give an answer to, for whatever reason, it is
essential that you discuss it with your panel solicitors. Failure
to disclose information could give the buyer grounds for taking
action against you. This is simply a tax charged by the government, and only affects you if you are buy property for more than £60,000. It is paid by the buyer. If
you buy for exactly £60,000 you pay nothing in stamp duty;
if you pay from £60,001 to £250,000 stamp duty is charged
at 1% on the whole of the purchase price. From £250,001 to
£500,000 it is charged at 3%, and above £500,000 it
is charged at 4%. This is a report carried out by a surveyor on the physical state of the property you are buying. If you are buying a property you should be aware that the property is "sold as seen". It is for you, as the buyer, to discover any physical defects by means of inspections and surveys. Most
houses are bought with the assistance of a mortgage and the bank
or building society, will require a mortgage valuation. However,
this is not a survey - it merely ensures that they property is of
sufficient value to protect the lender's interest. Our advice is
that you should at least have an RICS Homebuyer's Report prepared
by a qualified surveyor. This will cost more than a mortgage valuation
but it is advisable. It is possible to go one step further and have
a full structural survey (initially you should not chose this option
unless the surveyor who carries out the Homebuyer's Report thinks
any matter should be investigated further). These documents firstly act as evidence that the person selling the property actually owns it, and secondly set out any rights or obligations that affect the property. If
you are selling, then valuable time can be saved if your title deeds
can be obtained by us at an early stage. If you have a mortgage
then your bank or building society will be holding your title deeds.
Your panel solicitors will need to know your mortgage account number
and the name and address of the lender. Some lenders charge a fee
to send out your deeds but this will normally be added to your mortgage
account. This is the document that passes the ownership of the property from the seller to the buyer. It
is dated with the completion date, and will be sent to the Land
Registry after completion. The Land Registry need this deed to change
their records, and show the buyer as the new owner of the property.
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