Buying property? You’ll need a conveyancing practitioner. But what is a conveyancing practitioner?
Buying a first or new home is one of the life’s greatest joys – it’s also a big step and probably the most significant financial transaction most people will ever make. So, it’s not something to be dealt with lightly. However, before you can take possession of your new property and move in, you have to ensure that the process of transferring legal ownership of the property to you is completed properly. This legal process of transferring ownership of land or property from one person or entity to another is known as ‘conveyancing’ – and you need the help of a qualified conveyancing practitioner to facilitate the process for you.
At the high level, we can summarize conveyancing as changing the ownership on a property’s Certificate of Title, registering a mortgage (for buyers) or discharging a mortgage (for sellers), and transfer cleared funds from the buyer to the seller. While that might sound straightforward enough, there’s actually a whole heap of legal processes and paperwork that needs to happen behind the scenes before everything is done and dusted. And it needs to happen correctly otherwise it could even cause the whole deal to fall through.
What is a conveyancing practitioner?
Your conveyancing practitioner can be either:
A conveyancing solicitor or conveyancing lawyer – in other words, a fully qualified legal professional with extensive training in many aspects of the law who is able to offer the full range of legal services, in addition to conveyancing; or
A licensed conveyancer – in other words, someone who specializes in the transfer of property ownership. While a licensed conveyancer is specialized in property, they can’t deal with any other complex legal issues.
Irrespective of whether your conveyancing practitioner is a licensed conveyancer or a conveyancing solicitor or lawyer, they will handle all the legal aspects of your property purchase or sale for you.
However, a property deal is often quite a complex process, and there can be all manner of surprises and complications lurking in the process. For example, if there is a dispute over a property boundary if the transaction involves a tricky lease arrangement, or perhaps the sellers are in the process of a relationship break-up.
In such cases, it’s advisable to use a fully qualified solicitor or lawyer as your conveyancing practitioner. After all, if you’re using a licensed conveyancer as your conveyancing practitioner and another legal issue pops up during your property transaction, they would have to refer you to a solicitor or lawyer to deal with the matter.
Your Auckland conveyancing practitioners at Remuera law firm Quay Law are also fully qualified conveyancing lawyers with extensive training in many aspects of the law, not just property law, which can be very handy if any other legal issues should pop up during the conveyancing process.
Why you need a conveyancing practitioner?
A property deal is never just a simple buy-sell transaction. There’s a complex web of relationships – for example, the respective banks of the seller and buyer, their mortgage brokers and insurers, their estate agents, the local authorities – and they each have their own special requirements that have to be satisfied before the property transaction can be successfully concluded.
It’s the job of the conveyancing practitioner to manage all these relationships and ensure that each party’s requirements are met before the transaction can be completed. The service you receive from your conveyancing practitioner during your property purchase can make a huge difference to how easy or difficult the whole process is for you.
Your Quay Law conveyancing solicitor in Auckland will handle all the legal aspects of buying or selling a property for you, from dealing with the purchase and sale contracts and doing local council searches to liaising with the banks and transferring the funds to pay for the property.
Talk to your Auckland conveyancing solicitor ASAP
If you’re in the process of buying or selling a property, don’t hesitate to get in touch with your Remuera conveyancing solicitors at Auckland law firm Quay Law as soon as possible. Our conveyancing solicitors are fully qualified and experienced in all conveyancing matters. In fact, we pride ourselves on taking the stress out of your property purchase by managing your property transaction for you from start to finish – and we’ll keep you fully informed of what’s happening throughout the process. So get in touch with us today.