How to deal with conveyancers (without dragging out your sale)

Telegraph Money on keeping the completion process moving at an acceptable pace

Britain is one of the slowest places in the world to sell a home – and even if you get as far as agreeing a deal with a buyer, exchange and completion can still be fraught with delays.
The process is often slowed up due to a barrage of questions from a potential buyer, via their conveyancer.
While a little back and forth is to be expected, the process can become tiresome if inane queries are persistent, and if it goes on for too long you can run the risk of a chain collapsing.
Here, Telegraph Money explores how sellers can prevent conveyancers doing more than their due diligence and needlessly slamming the brakes on a house sale.
In this guide, we will cover:
Conveyancing is the term for the small mountain of legal and administrative procedures involved in buying and selling property.
It is the legal process that takes place after you have accepted an offer from a buyer, and is normally carried out by either solicitors, chartered conveyancers or chartered legal executives.
Among other things, the conveyancer will carry out searches, draw up contracts, deal with the Land Registry and ask questions to the seller’s solicitor on the buyer’s behalf.
It is these questions that can become a big hurdle in getting the transaction over the line.
Jonathan Rolande, of the National Association of Property Buyers, said: “It’s something you get drawn into as the seller. There can be questions on top of questions, and then questions on the answers.”
Once the conveyancing is complete and the buyer is happy with the results of the survey and has finalised their mortgage, contracts can be exchanged. After you have exchanged the contract, the house sale is legally binding.
Reaching that point can be an arduous task, though. According to Home Sale Pack, which provides digital information packs to homemovers, it takes an average of 187 days to sell a house in Britain – almost three times longer than in America.
Aaron Strutt, from mortgage broker Trinity Financial, said: “International buyers coming to the UK often can’t believe how complex the home-buying process is. It seems like transactions were quicker before Covid and they are not back up to speed.”
In most other European countries, if you buy a property and it turns out to have something wrong with it, the law obliges the seller to rectify the problem or pay you compensation. In Britain, however, we have the caveat emptor “buyer beware” rule.
This puts the onus on the buyer to find out everything they need to know about the property before buying. 
It is, however, the seller’s duty to disclose “latent defects” in title. A latent defect is a problem that cannot be discovered by reasonable inspections or investigations – for example, the right of a neighbour to enter on to the property and dig up the garden to lay new drains, according to law firm Morrish Solicitors. 
There is no general responsibility for the seller to disclose physical problems with a property, unless inquiries arise out of searches or a buyer’s surveyor report, according to Anton Osborne, technical director at law firm Taylor Rose.
Conveyancer queries are mostly perfectly reasonable and required, with buyers seeking assurances there are no breaches of building regulations or asking if there are planning permissions they should know about.
Mortgage lenders require solicitors to undertake a full title review to confirm that everything is in order, so some level of inquiry is practically guaranteed.
Yet Rhys Schofield, of Peak Mortgages and Protection, says a number of conveyancers slow up the negotiations by using “sausage factory” sets of “silly and unnecessary” formulaic questions, which aren’t relevant to individual properties.
Mr Osborne says inquiries should always be transaction specific.
“The Law Society has provided some very clear guidance on this,” he said. “The conveyancing protocol illustrates what are appropriate inquiries and what are not. 
“If more property lawyers took note of the protocol when raising inquiries and followed its guidance, then the number of questions, and therefore, the length of transactions would certainly be reduced.”
His thoughts are echoed by Clare Andrews, of legal firm Moore Barlow: “Firms accredited under the Conveyancing Quality Scheme (CQS) must follow a set protocol, which is very clear that only specific inquiries can be raised to clarify issues arising from the draft contract papers or survey. 
“Anything non-specific, the seller’s solicitor can refuse to deal with if both firms fall under the CQS.”
It’s good practice to be forthcoming, honest and transparent throughout the selling process. However, as mentioned before, some questions and demands take things too far. 
Ryan Nelson, founder of Rental Real Estate, explained that sellers can fall foul of unreasonable requests, such as demanding expensive renovations or excessively intrusive inspections. 
“Sellers can push back if requests seem tangential and stalling,” he said.
“Some requests breach legal requirements, excessively delay the process or place undue financial burden on the seller,” explains Lewis Jaundrell, from Landlord Vision. 
“You should consult your own conveyancer to determine whether the request is advisable – this should ensure a fair and efficient negotiation process.”
The Law Society’s conveyancing rulebook states that the seller’s lawyer does not need to answer queries “seeking opinion rather than fact”.
Mr Rolande said: “You could refuse to comply even from the very first question – you’re completely within your rights to just not be helpful at all.
“But that would lead to suspicion and likely the sale falling through.”
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Seemingly needless queries from conveyancers could be a ruse, warns Mr Rolande. 
“You do need to be wary, as it could be a stalling technique used by buyers who aren’t being honest,” he said. “They could potentially be waiting for shares to go up in price so they can sell them and boost their deposit, or something like that.”
“I’d always look at the profile of the buyer, though. If these questions are coming on behalf of a first-time buyer, for example, I’d go along with it because I think they are just being young and cautious, which is understandable.
“If it were a buy-to-let investor or cash buyer, repeated questions are very likely to be a stalling technique.”
Hiring a good solicitor on your end can help with making the negotiation as smooth as possible.
Scott Taylor-Barr, of Barnsdale Financial Management, said: “Opting for a conveyancer solely based on cost can result in subpar service quality. As the strength of a chain hinges on its weakest link, selecting the cheapest operator can adversely affect everyone involved in the process.”
Ms Andrews says the seller should “ideally, instruct their solicitor prior to going on the market”. 
“This will allow their solicitor time to review the title and examine the property information form,” she added. “They can then preempt any inquiries that will be raised and address these in advance.”
You must not lie when informing the buyer about the condition of your property, as this opens the door for misrepresentation cases.
A London buyer successfully sued their seller for £200,000 last year after their property was found to have Japanese knotweed growing by the shed. The seller hadn’t highlighted any issues on the property form during the sale.
If disclosures are not made, this could breach the law – which states it is an offence to omit information that could impact the decision of the average consumer.
Provided you answer questions about the property honestly, and have not tried to cover an issue up, you will legally be in the clear.
To sue you successfully, the buyer would need to convince a judge that you knew about the problem before you sold the house, then lied about it when asked questions about the property’s condition.
Mr Rolande said: “Potentially, the person could come back and sue you for issues you didn’t disclose, such as a long-running dispute over a fence with a neighbour,” Mr Rolande said. “But instances like this are very rare.”
Indemnity insurance is often a quick and convenient way of dealing with issues that crop up during the conveyancing process. Policies are there to cover worst-case scenarios, and are very rarely claimed on. 
The cost, typically around £150, is worked out by insurers based on the value of the property and the nature of the risk involved.
Mortgage lenders almost always insist on indemnity insurance due to the risk of issues that cannot be resolved. For example, to cover cases where historic work to a property – where no planning permission or building regulations certificates were obtained – even though the chances of any enforcement action by a local authority would be slim.
“The alternative to taking out indemnity insurance would be to try and resolve the issue itself, but this could take months and potentially open up other issues that both parties would prefer to remain sealed and risk causing transactions to fall apart,” said Mr Osborne.
“Indemnity insurance does not have to be taken out, however, it is usually a quick and convenient way of dealing with issues that arise. 
“I would expect the seller to pay for this as they are selling the property with an issue that needs resolving.”
Unlike a standard insurance premium, an indemnity policy is a one-off payment that can last for decades.