Do You Need A Conveyancer + What Are The Benefits?

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Do You Need A Conveyancer + What Are The Benefits?

Written by: Canny Legal

 

When you are buying or selling a property, you may need to employ a conveyancer!  A conveyancer is a licensed professional who knows real estate law and who specialises in the legal aspects of buying and selling real property.  They can give you advice and information, prepare documentation and help you through the, sometimes stressful, settlement process.

Conveyancing involves the preparation, execution and lodgement of various legal documents to enable a swift and legal sale.  Typically, there are three phases:

  1. Preparation of Sale Contract
  2. The Exchange of Contracts
  3. Completion

Canny Legal has the expertise to guide you through every step of the conveyancing process and regularly collaborates with our accounting team and advisory team to ensure that all aspects of the transactions are considered.  This often includes planning for tax and stamp duty implications, capital gains tax, structure considerations and also investment advice.

When Do You Need A Conveyancer?

If you’re thinking about when to get a conveyancer, be aware that although you can engage a conveyancer at any time, most states recommend hiring a conveyancer before you begin the selling process.  A conveyancer can do searches for you that may reveal something about your property that you weren’t aware of.

The buyer has a right to know about easements and other matters that can arise.  If these aren’t revealed ahead of time, you could be legally liable for the oversight.

The following contains brief outlines of conveyancing laws and regulations for each state.  When conveyancing is required at a specific time in your state, we have outlined this below…

Do You Need Conveyancing When Buying A House?

Because a transfer of ownership is required when buying a house, it is still best practice to employ the help of a conveyancer when purchasing a property.  A conveyancer can help make the legal process of transferring ownership of a property a much smoother experience.  Your conveyancer will ensure your title is clear of covenants, caveats and easements, as well as all the other legal legwork involved with buying a house, saving you a lot of time and stress.  As well, your conveyancer will also be able to undertake research around local government records for any planned developments, illegal building work or unresolved disputes that could affect your purchase – as well as you!

Do You Need Conveyancing When Selling A House?

Selling a property is a legal process and while you are not required to have a conveyancer or lawyer manage the settlement, managing the documentation and settlement of your property sale can be complicated.  When you have a team of experts who are familiar with the legal process and legal documents and legislation, they are able to provide you with peace of mind and ensure the process runs smoothly from start to finish.

How To Pick A Good Conveyancer?

The decision on who to choose as your conveyancer in a property transaction needs to encompass more than just the single facet of cost!

It’s helpful in this case to compare two or more conveyancers to see what, exactly, you’re getting and use that to inform your decision as well.  Sometimes the cheapest option doesn’t have as much value as one that is slightly more expensive, based on the level of service you receive.  Finally, don’t downplay your intuition!  If you’ve got a gut feeling warning you off from one conveyancer in favour of another, don’t discount that – you might be trying to tell yourself something very important.

Benefits of Having A Conveyancer?

Buying or selling property often requires a lot of paperwork and familiarising yourself with the legalities of property law as well as the transfer of property.

This is a lot to deal with, especially on top of the lengths you must go to in order to find a suitable house to buy and transition from one house to another.  Particularly if you are moving somewhere far away, the process can be stressful and very confusing.

This is why people often hire a conveyancing expert, like the team at Canny Legal to help them through the legal process of buying or selling a home.  This is also why we wanted to put this article together so that you can see the overall benefits of having a conveyancer and how they can help you with your property transfer.

Can You Do Conveyancing Yourself?

The short answer is – yes – you can technically do the conveyancing work yourself.

The biggest pro of DIY conveyancing is that it can save you money.  A conveyancer or solicitor will typically charge between $500 – $1,000 for their services.  What are you paying them for?  Besides filling out paperwork, they will review the sale contract and conduct several legal searches on your behalf.  The searches do cost money, but generally, not more than a few hundred dollars, so DIY conveyancing can still save you hundreds of dollars.

Both the buyer and the seller are involved in the conveyancing process, and each has separate responsibilities.  Whether you’re a buyer or a seller, you must know the exact procedure to follow.  Conveyancing kits are available to help you through the process and most advisers recommend them.  A good kit takes you step-by-step through everything you need to do and offers tips that can help you avoid making mistakes.

Conveyancing kits can cost up to $100, so together with the searches you need to carry out, your savings probably won’t be as great as you thought they’d be.  Still, if all goes well, DIY conveyancing will save you money.

On the other hand, if all doesn’t go well, you don’t want to find yourself in the position of wishing you have shopped around and found a reasonably priced conveyancer or solicitor.  Why?  Because solicitors and licensed conveyancers carry professional indemnity insurance.  Their insurance protects you if something does happen to go wrong.  As a DIY conveyancer, you risk paying a heavy fine or even forfeiting your deposit if things don’t follow the procedure and take a wrong turn.

Expert Legal Advice From Canny Legal

At Canny Legal, we are able to offer additional advice when you choose to trust our team with your conveyancing.  While a smooth conveyancing transaction is always at the forefront of our minds, it’s the things that present themselves afterwards that we want you to be aware of and to be able to consider.

We can also provide advice and further guidance on issues throughout the process, including estate planning and any tax implications of buying or selling a property.  With our team of accountants on hand, we can go in-depth – should you need it, on knowing straight up what your tax implications may or may not be and what sort of stamp duty or capital gains tax you could be looking at – all before pressing go.

Get in touch with our team to find out how we can help you with your property and conveyancing to ensure that when it comes to making, what can very easily be, one of the most important financial transactions of your life – stress-free!

Pictured, Canny Legal Lawyers Gabrielle Andersen and Karlene Wightman

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