In law, conveyancing is the transfer of legal title of property from one person to another. A typical conveyancing transaction contains two parts

1. Exchange of contracts

2. Completion

Conveyancing occurs in three stages: before contract, before completion and after completion. In England and Wales, conveyancing is usually undertaken by a lawyer or a licensed conveyancer.

Either may use unqualified staff to carry out some or all of the conveyancing under their supervision. In the UK there is now strong competition for new conveyancing instructions, with a high number of firms of lawyers and licensed conveyancing companies offering a similar service and quoting similar fees.

Under English and Welsh law agreements are not legally binding until contracts are exchanged. This affords both the advantage of freedom before contract, but also the disadvantage of wasted time and expense in the event the that contracts are not exchanged due to either party pulling out of the property transaction. For property purchases, the normal process is for the seller to accept an offer from the buyer for the purchase of the property.

The buyer will then arrange for a survey on the property they are purchasing and their conveyancer will carry out their searches and pre-contract enquiries. The seller's conveyancer will prepare the draft contract to be approved by the buyer's lawyer as well as collect and prepare property information to be provided to the buyer's lawyers.

Conveyancing from start to finish usually takes around 12 weeks, 6- 8 weeks up to exchange and a further 1-4 weeks for completion. In the period prior to exchange of contracts either party can pull out of the transaction at any time and for any reason, with no legal obligation to the other.

This can be irritating if you are a buyer, and have already invested both time and money in proceeding with the purchase, as you will not get a refund for any searches and surveys carried out on the property you are trying to buy.

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