Residential Property Solicitors

At Ellis-Fermor & Negus, we pride ourselves on providing a personal, high-quality conveyancing service for both private individuals and also commercial clients. Our legal experts are on hand to represent you at all stages of the purchase of your new home.

Our team of specialist residential property conveyancers has significant experience in dealing with a broad range of freehold and leasehold property transactions, including sales, purchases, transfers of equity and re-mortgages of both registered and unregistered land.

Two of our firm’s directors are residential property solicitors, each with around 20 years’ post qualification experience and head up their conveyancing teams of highly trained, experienced and personable solicitors, chartered legal executives and conveyancers.

Our solicitors and chartered legal executives have experience in all aspects of residential property law and we dedicate ourselves to ensuring our knowledge stays up to date, in order to give you the best service possible. They have between 9 and 25 years’ post qualification experience.

We always make sure that junior members of staff are supported and supervised appropriately so that the quality of our residential property service remains high throughout.

We also employ around a further 6 conveyancers, with between 5 and 20 years’ residential property law experience. Although they are not legally qualified, they have received extensive training within our firm and any junior conveyancers work under the supervision of a conveyancer with at least 15 years’ experience. Many of these conveyancers are working towards a formal qualification to become a solicitor, chartered legal executive or licensed conveyancer.

We have a proven track record in helping our clients with buying and selling their homes and investment properties and providing a reassuring and personal service. You can find out more information about our prices on our website.

We Can Help You With

What does it cost?

Prices for representing people when they are buying a residential property vary according to the complexity of the transaction and the value of the property. To get a full quote please use the calculator below. Our prices include charges for our legal representation, and other charges that are mandatory and that we will need to pay on your behalf during the process.
To give you a rough idea, our legal fees (ie representation during all stages of the conveyancing process) range from £350.00 to £2,700.00 (plus VAT at 20%).

Other required fees
Standard search fees (variable acccording to property and local authority) From £91.00 to £300.00
HM Land Registry fee Between £20.00 to £1,105.00
Electronic money transfer fee £30.00
Other costs £3.60 to £40.80
Estimated total price From £460.80 to £4,690.60

Use our conveyancing calculator to generate a quote today:

How much is Stamp Duty Land Tax / Land Transaction tax

If you buy a property or land over a certain price in England or Wales, when you complete the purchase you need to pay either Stamp Duty Land Tax or Land Transaction Tax.
The amount you will need to pay depends on factors including the purchase price of your property.
You can calculate the amount you will need to pay by using the Stamp Duty Land Tax calculator (if the property is in England) or the Land Transaction Tax calculator (if the property is in Wales).
Each case is different. However this tax charge can range between £50.00 and £150,000.00

How long does it take?

It depends on a number of factors. For example, if there are a number of parties in your property chain it is likely to take longer compared to someone who is a chain-free buyer.

On average the whole process can take between 8-14 weeks. You can download our comprehensive guide here.

What are the main stages involved?

There are a number of stages, all of which may vary according to the circumstances of your property purchase. Our experts can represent you during each stage. For a comprehensive guide see the following leaflets

In summary, the main stages are:

Pre-contract

After you have made an offer on the property we will prepare the legal documents you need to transfer ownership of the property to you.
The seller will prepare a contract for this which will include the selling price, legal details about the property, and other information such any planning restrictions. Before you sign this we will find as much information as possible for you about the property, including through searches with the local authority and verifying the seller’s ownership of the property.
We can advise you about how to get a full property survey at this stage, and can also receive documents from your mortgage provider if you will be using one.

Exchange of contracts

When you and the property seller are happy to agree to the contract you will both sign, and we will arrange for copies to be sent to each other alongside arrangements for paying the deposit to the seller – often this is ten per cent of the purchase price.

Before completion

We will make sure that everything is ready for you, including checking the legal documents to transfer ownership, making arrangements for the transfer of your funds to the seller, and completing final HM Land Registry checks.

Completion

We will continue to oversee the process during the completion stage to make sure thing progress as smoothly as possible. This includes making sure you receive the legal documents that prove your new ownership.

After completion

We will register the change of ownership with HM Land Registry and pay your Stamp Duty Land Tax or Land Transaction Tax.