DIY conveyancing-plot of land

[R P McMurphey]

Hi all, I have agreed with the local land owner to buy a small plot off him for not much money, to use to extended my garden. I have been in touch with some solicitors and they are asking £600 all in to do the work. that's nearly 90% of the cost of the land! surly there cant be that much work involved in buying a plot of land...other than checking through the contract and applying for a change in ownership of the land? I have done a diy divorce before so im not afraid of doing it myself...the conveyancing that is! can anyone give me any advice or point me in a direction of some useful websites?

ta!

Steve

[Huge]

Based on my experience, DIY conveyancing should be against the law.

Find a cheaper solicitor.

[Autolycus]

And based on mine (4 d-i-y sales, 4 d-i-y purchases) solicitors are slow, careless, and sloppy (spelling their client's name wrongly; describing my neighbour's land instead of mine in my mortgage deed; numerical errors in the completion statement; and many more examples)

So while some solicitors (or rather their clerks) may be quick, thorough, and cheap, by no means all of them are: just as not all d-i-y conveyancers are as incompetent as the one example Huge usually cites.

As for assistance: the Which? book is helpful for straightforward cases, but, iirc, tells you not to d-i-y when you're buying part of the seller's land, or unregistered land; Joseph's "Conveyancing Fraud" is a bit gung-ho about it all, but is one to read when you have moments of doubt; Bradshaw's "House Buying, Selling and Conveyancing" is fairly comprehensive, up-to-date, and only 12 quid.

Admittedly, I did have a few years of writing contracts, so the odd bit of legalese does not unduly worry me, but to anyone capable of reading and understanding the books I've mentioned, and who can write reasonable English, I'd say: "Go for it!"

[EricP]

Find a local Licensed Conveyancer. The Council license them and should have a list.

[Huge]

[17 lines snipped]

I'm not terribly interested in a willy-waving war, thanks.

So sack them. Have you ever tried sacking the vendor/purchaser?

One is quite enough.

[8 lines snipped]

Oh, and by the way. Don't expect to do business with me if you're doing your own conveyancing.

[Richard]

will be as helpful as we can!

not be as helpful as LR but you must provide evidence (to LR) of any Stamp Duty Land Tax paid or a certificate of exemption.

Richard

[Al Reynolds]

You should be able to find a conveyancer to do it for about £200-300. You can do it yourself - there are books to help. A friend of mine did his first purchase this way. Decide how much of your time £250 is worth. If your going to spend longer on this than that, pay someone else to do it.

Al

PS How much land do you get for £660?

[Al Reynolds]

the one my friend used - it's updated regularly so you need to get the most recent version.

If you want to get a solicitor to reduce their standard costs, you could point out that they won't need to deal with a mortgage company. You probably don't need to do any local authority searches as you already know about the land. Bear in mind that the cost of disbursements (like Land Registry fees) are non-negotiable.

HTH, Al

[Richard]

You may /think/ that you know about the land, but do you know /everything/ about it?

Bear in mind that the cost of disbursements (like

but tiny. Assuming the land is unregistered. It is registered, isn't it? How long has your neighbour owned it? A thought has occurred: do you know if you are transferring an entire title or just a part? A Transfer of Part is not that straightforward. As I said, at LR we will do our best to help but there are some things best left to those who have done it before.

Richard

[Autolycus]

A small relief, for which I am appropriately grateful.

Easy - refuse to deal with them. As you (below) would do with me. In the examples I've mentioned I, too, could have refused to have further dealings with the buyer (whose solicitor it was) in the first case, but decided to leave my nose attached to my face; in the second I could have sought a different mortgage provider (ditto); and in the third, it was rather late, a couple of days before completion, to do much apart from pointing out the error to the seller's solicitor, tempting as it was to hand over several hundred pounds less than was truly due.

The pleasure would be mine.

[Al Reynolds]

A fair point. It is at the end of the garden, however, so the local authority searches are unlikely to turn up anything different to the ones he has already had done on the house. An environmental search almost certainly won't find anything different. We're only talking about a £700 piece of land.

Would it not be simplest in this case to get the landowner to do the work separating the parcel of land (paying their own solicitor) and then do a normal transfer on that parcel. Certainly if the landowner selling this land has set the price based on the purchaser paying all the legal fees, and there is a transfer of part to be done, then £600 sounds more reasonable.

Believe me, the LR is one of the few national institutions that I still hold in very high esteem - my dealings with them have always been a pleasure and the standard of service exemplary.

Regarding leaving things "to those who have done it before", I still think it is worth considering whether any of the costs can be avoided, but like you said, it depends on the complexity of the particular case.

Al

[Richard]

I was going to ramble on about who is benefiting most from this transaction but I really think that it's going to be too much trouble to go through a formal transfer. They're much better off just moving a fence to benefit the new owner in return for a wodge of notes to the current owner and forgetting about the registration issues. Give it 10 years and apply for adverse possession. That'll cost the OP a certain amount but, if the current owner doesn't object, should be less hassle than trying to do it properly now.

Ta! Just pretend you didn't see the paragraph above ;-)

Richard

[Owain]

"Richard" wrote | I was going to ramble on about who is benefiting most from | this transaction but I really think that it's going to be | too much trouble to go through a formal transfer. They're | much better off just moving a fence to benefit the new | owner in return for a wodge of notes to the current owner | and forgetting about the registration issues. Give it 10 | years

12, IIRC

| and apply for adverse possession. That'll cost the OP | a certain amount but, if the current owner doesn't object, | should be less hassle than trying to do it properly now.

It will not work, as the possession is not *adverse*, which is a prerequisite for *adverse* possession.

And what happens if the current owner sells / dies / becomes mentally incapable / a motorway is to be built through the property / etc...

Local authority and other searches are another thing, they may have been done when the house was purchased but since then there may be new government ideas, environmental regulations etc.

On the subject of legal fees, there are provisions where the land value is below a certain amount and there is no conflict of interest for *one* solicitor to advise both parties.

Owain