Conveyancing Solicitors

Conveyancing includes the purchase and/or sale of newly built or second-hand residences, as well as the transfer of sites whether by purchase, sale or gift.

We have tailored our services to meet the particular requirements of all client types, be they first-time buyers or investors.

You can be assured of a professional, comprehensive and client focused service at all times. It is our policy to keep clients well informed at all stages throughout the transaction.

We also recommend and advise clients to prepare Wills and Co-Ownership Agreements, where appropriate. At the outset of a transaction we are happy to provide clients with written details of the cost of the transaction, to include legal fees, stamp duty, Land Registration fees, Searchers fees etc.

Buying a house

• First, ensure that you have prepared a rough budget, to include the approximate price of the house, all professional fees (Solicitors, Surveyors, Valuers, etc.) together with any stamp duty payable (for details of the stamp duty rates, please click here).
• Once you have found the property you wish to buy, pay your booking deposit to the Auctioneer. This booking deposit simply holds the property for you, and is fully refundable if you decide not to proceed with the purchase make sure the Auctioneer is bonded.
• The Seller will then instruct his Solicitor to issue contracts for the sale of the house to your Solicitors.
• It is very important that you are fully committed to buy the house before you sign the contracts. Therefore, you should ensure that:-

1. a) You carry out a full and thorough inspection of the house. We recommend that you hire a Surveyor, who will ensure that the property is structurally sound and doesn’t suffer from any structural flaws or defects. He should also carry out a planning search in the offices of the Local Authority to ensure that the house is fully compliant with planning permission and building regulations.b) You should ensure that the money necessary to buy the house is available to you, again before you sign the contracts. Generally, this means that, not only should you have been verbally loan approved, but you should also have a written letter of loan offer from the bank outlining the terms and conditions upon which they are prepared to loan the money to you.

• We, as your Solicitors will then examine the contracts and the title documents to ensure that title to the house is in order.
• Once all of the above have been dealt with, you then sign the contracts and pay the balance contract deposit. Typically, this is 10% of the overall purchase price, less the amount of the booking deposit you have already paid.
• The Sellers then sign the contract which means there is now a binding contract in place. This means that the Seller has to sell the house to you, but equally, you are contractually obliged to buy the house from them.
• The contracts contain a closing date, which is the date that has been agreed between both you and the Seller, upon which you will pay them the balance monies and in return for that, they will give you all title documents and the keys to the house.
• Prior to that date, you need to ensure that your loan cheque will issue from the bank. This means complying with all their requirements, such as setting up a life policy, getting building insurance cover for the house, carrying out a valuation of the house, completing all the relevant paper work etc. It is vitally important that all those documents are in place with the bank as soon as possible, as without them, the bank will not release your cheque.
• If it’s a case that you are not ready to buy the house on the agreed closing date, the Seller will be entitled to charge you penalty interest under the terms of the contract.
• On the closing date, we, as your Solicitors meet with the Solicitors for the Sellers. We give them the balance purchase monies and they in turn give us the title documents.
• Generally, the keys to the house are held by the Auctioneers and once we confirm to you that the house has been bought, you call to the Auctioneers to collect the keys.
• As we are obliged to register the title documents and in particular the mortgage in favour of the bank, as soon as possible after purchase of the house, we require our fees, outlay and any stamp duty necessary, to be paid on the closing date.
• After the closing date, you then need to call to see us to arrange to sign the deeds.
• If there is any stamp duty payable, the deeds must be signed by you, and presented to the Revenue Commissioners, together with the relevant stamp duty, within 30 daysof the closing date. If not, the Revenue will impose hefty penalties for the late payment of the stamp duty.
• Once the deeds have been stamped by the Revenue, they are then lodged in the Land Registry or the Registry of Deeds, where your registration will be noted. This can take anything up to 12 months to complete depending on the title to the property.
• Once the registration has completed, we then return your original title documents to the bank, (if you have a mortgage) or directly to you, if you finance the purchase from your own money.

Selling a house

• Before you put your property on the market, we need to have your title deeds. If you hold them at home, you can leave them with us. If they are held by a bank, we will need you to sign a written authorisation, which we send to the bank, authorising the release of the title documents to us.
• Once the property has been sold, the Auctioneer will write to us, confirming the details of the sale. We in turn will speak with you, to make sure that the contract for sale reflects your wishes, and deals with such points as the closing date (the date upon which you hand over possession of the property), any contents to be included, and any other particular requirements you may have in respect of the sale.
• The contracts are then sent to the Solicitors for the purchaser who typically will be expected to sign the contracts and return them to us within three to four weeks from the day they receive them.
• They return the contracts to us, together with the relevant contract deposit (usually 10% of the sale price). You then sign the contracts, which means that there is a binding contract in place and you are now obliged to sell the house to them and they in turn are obliged to buy it from you.
• We then carry out the exchange of various legal documents in advance of the closing date.
• On the closing date, the Solicitors for the purchasers will meet with us and give us the balance of the sale money. In return, we will hand them the title documents to your house. We will then notify the Auctioneer that the sale has been completed and they will release the keys of your house to the purchasers.
• On the closing day, we will arrange to pay off your mortgage and any other outgoings which may affect the house (such as water rates, service charge, monies secured against the house, etc.) We will also, subject to your approval, deduct our fees and outlay, and then release the balance sale proceeds to you as soon as all cheques have been cleared by our bank.