Legal & Paperwork
What conveyancing is actually doing while nothing appears to happen
The silent weeks in a transaction are searches, enquiries and title checks. Knowing the sequence makes the wait legible.
Laleh Farahani
Legal writer, The Property Decision
Laleh writes about conveyancing and searches, and the paperwork that quietly decides a completion date.
Contact Laleh through our contact page — mark your message for their attention and it will be passed on.
18 articles
Legal & Paperwork
Buying with someone you are not married to
Joint ownership defaults are not designed for your situation, and the paperwork to fix that is cheap.
Surveys & Condition
Which cracks matter and which do not
Every building has cracks. Width, direction, location and whether they are growing are what separate cosmetic from structural.
Surveys & Condition
What a survey explicitly does not cover
The exclusions section is the most important part of a survey report and the least read.
Legal & Paperwork
Freehold, leasehold and the other ways property is owned
Ownership structures differ so much between countries that the same building can be owned in fundamentally different ways.
Legal & Paperwork
Title, registration and what the plan actually shows
The document that proves ownership also records the rights and burdens attached to the land, and they transfer with it.
Legal & Paperwork
Restrictive covenants and the things you cannot do
A covenant is a promise attached to land rather than to a person, and it can bind owners for well over a century.
Legal & Paperwork
Rights of way, shared drives and access you rely on
Access to a property is a legal right, not a physical fact. Some houses are reached across land the owner does not own.
Legal & Paperwork
Boundaries: the fence is not the legal line
Boundary disputes cost far more than the land involved, and they usually begin with two people reading the same plan differently.
Legal & Paperwork
Indemnity insurance covers a risk, not a defect
It is offered whenever paperwork is missing, and it is worth knowing exactly what it pays for and what it does not.
Legal & Paperwork
Exchange, completion and what changes at each moment
Two separate events transfer risk and ownership, and in some systems they happen on different days for very good reasons.
Legal & Paperwork
Source of funds, gifted deposits and the checks nobody warns you about
Anti-money-laundering rules oblige your conveyancer to trace where the money came from, and unprepared buyers lose weeks to it.
Surveys & Condition
Timber decay, woodworm and the reports that oversell them
Most timber problems are a symptom of water. Treating the timber without finding the water spends money and leaves the cause in…
Surveys & Condition
Snagging a new build: the inspection nobody schedules
A new house comes with defects, and the period in which they are fixed free is limited. The inspection that finds them is optional…
Surveys & Condition
Chimneys, flues and the risk in a disused stack
A chimney is a tall exposed structure carrying combustion products, and a redundant one is a maintenance liability that produces…
Surveys & Condition
Loft and garage conversions: the quality questions
Converted space is where value and defect most often sit together. The questions are about structure, escape, insulation and…
Legal & Paperwork
Listed buildings and conservation areas: buying inside a rulebook
Protection applies to the building, not to the owner. What you may do is decided by rules that came with the property and outlast…
Legal & Paperwork
Property information forms and the cost of a careless answer
The forms a seller completes become part of the record a buyer relies on. An inaccurate answer can have consequences long after…