How long does property conveyancing take
July 20, 2021

How long does property conveyancing take?

Timing can be crucial when it comes to property conveyancing

Property conveyancing is the process of transferring ownership of one property to another person. This includes the exchange of legal titles and many other property ownership documents. The whole process can be so complex that there are professionals who you can rely on to take care of this process for you. You can enlist the professional services of a conveyancer or a property lawyer.

Buying or selling a house can have a massive effect on your finances and your lifestyle. It can take a lot of careful planning to ensure that you the property buyer or seller has a smooth transition to a new property for living in. When it comes to planning a property purchase or sale it’s only natural to ask questions like “how long does property conveyancing take?” While the question may sound simple, the answer can be very complicated.

The time it takes for property conveyancing depends on a lot of factors. There are essential tasks that need to be carried out like the exchanging and signing of legal documents. The completion of these documents could come down to how organised you or the other party involved in the transaction are.

The short answer

It’s common for the property conveyancing process to take around 8-12 weeks from start to finish. There are a lot of things that can hold up this process. So if you’re expecting to move into your new house asap, be prepared for possible delays.

How the conveyancing process works

Looking to buy a house? For you, the conveyancing process starts when your offer has been accepted by the seller. The process also begins for you as a seller when you decide to accept an offer. Throughout the conveyancing process, there won’t be a lot you have to do. Your property conveyancing professional will take care of most of this for you. They can manage documents and make sure everything is signed by their proper deadlines. Most of the work you have to do involves thoroughly reading any documents or contracts before you sign them.

Pre-contract

This phase includes everything that happens before the contract of sale for the property is drawn up. During the pre-contract phase, you should be dedicating your time to finding the right property conveyancing professional like a conveyancer or property lawyer. Once you’ve selected your conveyancer they will start doing all the legal prep work for you. This includes collecting legal documents for the property.

Your conveyancer will perform a “local search” by contacting the local council. They do this in order to obtain information about the property’s land and the local area. Details could be revealed such as easements on the property or whether or not the house is in a bushfire-prone area. A council can take up to ten days until they send over this property information to the conveyancer.

During this time you should also have your mortgage lender assessing your application for a home loan. This is something you won’t have to worry about if you’re the property seller. By this time you should already have pre-approval for a loan. So after putting an offer down on a house you will need a mortgage lender to officially approve your loan. The time it takes for approval can vary depending on your choice of lender. Some can do it in ten days while others can take up to two weeks.

The final part of this phase is organising an inspection for your new house. After putting an offer down on a property you will often get a cooling-off period where you can organise to have a professional property inspection organised. A professional property inspector can have a detailed look at the house and provide you with a comprehensive report on the condition of the property and the land it sits on. If you’re still happy with the condition of the house then it’s time to move onto the next phase.

All up this pre-contract phase can take as little as two weeks to complete.

Drafting the contract

The next phase involves your conveyancer collecting all the information provided from the seller’s conveyancer and the land registry. This information will be used to draft up the contract of sale for your new property. This can be one of the most time-consuming parts of the conveyancing process. Collecting this information and drafting up the contract can take two to ten weeks.

Once the property search documents come back from the land registry there may be issues that your conveyancer notices. It could be anything from inaccurate information for things that are simply missing from the property search. Each time your conveyancer asks for new information it can draw out the entire process. It’s what needs to be done in order to make sure that the whole process is carried out according to legal requirements.

Exchanging contracts

After your bank has approved your loan and the contract of sale is drawn up it’s time for both parties to exchange contracts. Your conveyancer will exchange your section of the contract while the other conveyancer will hand over their section to you. Once both contracts have been exchanged, you legally have to buy the property and the seller must sell it to you.

As long as both parties don’t see any issues with the contracts they should be ready to sign straight away. So generally speaking this process can take anywhere from a day to a week. It really depends on how much time you and the conveyancer want to spend on reviewing the contract of sale.

Completion

The final phase of the property sale involves your payment of the house being transferred to the seller. This will happen on settlement day where you will officially receive the keys to your new house. Your conveyancer will take care of this process for you. They will communicate with your bank and make sure that your loan from the bank will be successfully transferred to the seller. On this day your conveyancer will also ensure you have sufficient funds available to pay for the stamp duty and land tax charges applicable to your property purchase.

Settlement day tends to happen two weeks after the initial exchange of contracts. But if any issues happen with the contracts then this could be delayed. To prepare yourself for delays it’s best to set the bar low when it comes to the turnaround of your property purchase. Ask for a later settlement date to help you be organised. For example, a 60-day settlement will give you plenty of time to go cover everything properly and resubmit any documents that haven’t been filled out correctly.

Final thoughts

It may seem like the whole property conveyancing process takes longer than it needs to. But once you realise how much is at stake and how much attention to detail is involved it will start to make more sense. Seeing as this is likely to be one of the biggest purchases of your life, it’s important to make sure everything is done right. It’s also worth noting that if any legal issues arise during this process, a conveyancer will not be able to offer legal advice.

If you have a property lawyer looking after your conveyancing then they can not only provide legal advice but can also represent you in court if matters escalate. A great example could be a house and land package gone wrong. We’ve seen many property purchases go to court after a house and land package isn’t built to the original plans and specifications laid out in the building contract.

Call P&B Law today on 1300 526 246 for assistance with your property conveyancing.