Choose Online Conveyancing

The arrival of online conveyancing has revolutionised the conveyancing profession  and cheaper conveyancing quotes for online services have fuelled a price war among conveyancing firms. This has both benefits and a downside, as an irresistibly low quote for online conveyancing might not be the best deal for your conveyancing needs.

Advantages of online conveyancing

Conveyancing used to be a formal and often stressful process, involving meetings with solicitors and other conveyancing professionals – and the through of having to deal with a mountain of paperwork. Online conveyancing has kicked the whole process into the 21st century and the advantages are:

•     Meetings with solicitors are not required, making the process cheaper and faster
•     Online access to your conveyancing account 24/7, enabling you to check progress
•     Faster responses from authorities such as the Land Registry as most records are now online.

Disadvantages of online conveyancing include:

•     Less or no direct contact with your conveyancing professional
•     Documents such as leases may not be in electronic format and may need to be copied or uploaded, meaning extra costs
•     Costs such as postage, phone calls, completing forms and disbursements may apply to the final bill, so check exactly which services your quote for online conveyancing covers
•     Some online conveyancing companies are based on a call centre system, so if anything goes wrong it may be difficult to actually get to speak to someone.

Finding an online conveyancing quote

Most firms of conveyancing solicitors and other professionals now offer quotes online – or there are specialist comparison websites offering quotes for online conveyancing. Whether you are a vendor (seller) or purchaser, it is advisable to obtain a selection of conveyancing quotes from different sources, such as individual firms or online comparison websites. The Law Society’s Conveyancing Quality Scheme (CQS) accredits conveyancing solicitors and many reputable firms now offer online conveyancing as a fast and more economical way of handling the process – as opposed to just offering a cut price service, as some providers do. The options are:

Looking for a firm of online conveyancers which is a member of the CQS offers some reassurance that your conveyancer has been approved by the Law Society – look for online conveyancing offered by firms which supply an established  business address and telephone or direct email contact

There are other online conveyancing providers which may offer cheap or even conditional fee deals (“No move, no fee”), but these may turn out to be faceless, web-based companies – estate agents now run some online conveyancing services, so check out any companies you are referred to by other parties involved in the sale before you decide.

Once you have chosen your online conveyancing provider, make the most of the advantages – check your account regularly to make sure everything is proceeding to schedule. However, remember that any extra services – even an extra email or a phone call to your conveyancing solicitor to discuss a problem – may incur extra fees. Don’t be shy about talking money and clarifying additional costs with your conveyancing firm – when the final invoice is drawn up, your conveyancing firm will not be shy about billing you for them.

Ask for a complete breakdown of costs if there is anything you are not sure about – all fees should be logged on your account as they accrue and a printout to explain how these have accrued should be available without any problem.

Tags: Cheap Conveyancing, conveyancing professional, Conveyancing Quality Scheme, conveyancing quotes, conveyancing solicitors, Online Conveyancing, price war conveyancing