Buying A House We Will Do The Homework

Buying a home is one of the largest investments most of us will ever make.

To protect your investment, at Ware & Kay we carry out the following conveyancing searches to ensure your new home holds no nasty surprises:

• Land Registry - as your solicitor we will obtain official copies of the register of your new property from the Land Registry.  This confirms the seller's ability to transfer ownership of the property to you, shows the boundaries of the property and any rights or restrictions that may affect your use or enjoyment of it.
• Land charges - for unregistered properties there is no central record of title.  Instead, we will examine the deeds and carry out searches against the previous owners of the property at the Land Charges Department.
• Local authority - this reveals legal restrictions or obligations, including tree preservation orders and building enforcement history.  It also shows any planned major infrastructure projects in the area, such as HS2 and Crossrail, and if the property is a listed building.
• Environmental searches - these will assess if the land is contaminated or in a flood risk area.
• Specialist - this could assess risks such as the effects of historic clay and coal-mining or flooding.  One of our experienced residential lawyers will find out if this applies and what you should do.
• Pre-completion - just before completing the transaction, we will check the search results remain up to date.

The seller does not have to tell you about defects, so always consider an independent survey.  Remember the purpose of your lender's mortgage valuation survey is to protect their interest not yours.  As your solicitor we can advise you on the different survey types and which is most appropriate.

Published: January 2015

Contact us:

If you are buying a home and would like to know more about our conveyancing services, please contact  York 01904 716000 or Wetherby 01937 583210.

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