As part of the legal requirements for providing a Home Information Pack, your conveyancer or solicitor will need to acquire an Energy Performance Certificate, or EPC. The EPC is a useful method of determining just how energy efficient your home, or the home you intend to buy, actually is. It considers a number of important factors in determining a scaled representation of energy efficiency expressed on a scale of A-G with the most efficient being A.

The EPC is beneficial for a number of reasons. Primarily it indicates how efficient the energy performance of a home is and this dictates the energy bills for that home. The most efficient homes, that fall in band A, will typically have low fuel bills because they retain and use heat properly and efficiently. In contrast, the poorer performing homes that fall into lower bands will have high fuel costs on an annual basis. As well as showing potential fuel bill costs and whether any work may be required to improve the energy efficiency of a home, the EPC also gives an indication of how little or much damage a home is doing to the environment.

Energy efficiency has been hitting the headlines for several years now because of the damage to the environment that, among other influencing factors, has been spurred by inefficient homes. Homes with an EPC in bracket A can be considered to be highly energy efficient and therefore doing minimal damage to the environment whereas those in band G are contributing more to environmental damage and climate change.

As the conveyancing market and process has opened up to greater competition, the emergence of e-conveyancers has been one of the stand out benefits offered. Providing a more affordable and often more reliable service than the average high street solicitor offers, consumers really only have to overcome one major hurdle – they first need to accept that it’s more than possible for a conveyancer to complete their end of the home selling or buying process without ever meeting their client.

E-conveyancing has become an ultra competitive market and combined with the slump in housing prices this has led to improved prices for consumers. Increased competition typically leads to reduced prices and improved services, and this certainly appears to be the case when it comes to conveyancing and e-conveyancing in particular. Even without extensive comparison, it’s possible to find a good e-conveyancer that offers their services at a rate that is vastly lower than a conveyancing solicitor offers.

Service levels are always an important consideration when choosing a service provider. In the past, conveyancing services have been offered solely by high street or family solicitors and many consumers have been subjected to less than ideal service levels. It can still prove very difficult to get hold of your solicitor and to firmly tie them down to a specific date or time period for the completion of your project. E-conveyancers have helped to improve this situation because they rely on conveyancing work alone to ensure the success of their business.

Both the buyer and seller of a property require the services of a conveyancer and while this was once conducted specifically by a conveyancing solicitor, this no longer needs to be the case with conveyancing specialists and conveyancing firms also able to offer this same service. Conveyancers not only need to conduct their work accurately but also quickly while ensuring that all relevant parties are kept informed of progress.

During the early stages of the process, the buyer’s conveyancer will collect various legal and title documents from the seller’s own solicitor. They will also arrange for local searches with the land registry and local council while dealing with mortgage conditions on behalf of the buyer. If any problems are unearthed during searches they will also deal with these and answer any questions received from the seller’s solicitor.

Having collected the deposit for the sale of the property, the buyer’s conveyancer will forward this deposit in order to begin the exchange of contracts. Transfer deeds and a mortgage deed are prepared awaiting signature from the buyer and are forwarded to the seller’s solicitor once they are completed and signed.

The final role of the buyer’s conveyancer is to arrange the payment of stamp duty, register the new ownership of the property with the Land Registry, and finally forward deeds to the mortgage lender where necessary. The process is largely an administrative one, but is is absolutely critical that everything goes exactly as expected and is completed on time and accurately.

Both the buyer and seller of a property is required to use a conveyancing solicitor of conveyancing firm to operate on their behalf. A conveyancer is involved throughout the process and whether you are thinking of buying or selling a specific property you should act early in order to get a conveyancer working on your behalf and completing the procedure as quickly and accurately as possible.

Initially, the two conveyancer’s will ask and answer questions of one another. Specifically, the seller’s conveyancer will request title deeds and then have the seller fill in a property information form. They will also draw up a contract for the sale of the property and send a copy to the buyer’s solicitor for their intervention. They will also request a mortgage settlement figure and answer questions posed by the buyer’s conveyancer.

On the exchange of contracts, the seller’s conveyancer will arrange a completion date, take the deposit, collect any outstanding settlement funds, and having approved the transfer deed will get the seller to sign it. On completion of the transaction, the conveyancer will then pay off the outstanding mortgage, update the land registry regarding the sale, and exchange the deeds and forward any remaining funds to the seller.

Throughout this process, the seller’s conveyancer is responsible for ensuring a timely completion of their work so that the sale can be conducted as quickly as possible and also ensuring that the necessary parties are informed of where they are at within the conveyancing process so that everybody knows what is going on.

As part of a Home Information Pack (HIP) and often as part of the conveyancing process, it is possible to include a Home Condition Report, or HCR for short. Initially, the HCR was to be considered a legal requirement of the HIP but the government has changed its stance on this and there is now no legal requirement for include an HCR in your pack. One can be purchased as an optional extra when having your pack produced, however, and may make the sale a more appealing prospect to any potential buyer.

Once produced, an HCR is a legally binding document, that outlines the physical condition of the property for sale. If a problem is found following completion of the sale that was not outlined in the HCR then the seller is liable for any costs incurred in the correction of that problem or damages that ensue because of it. On the other hand, if you are selling a property and an issue is highlighted in the HCR then the buyer legally has no ground to take issue with you over that matter once the sale has completed.

The HCR is not a legal requirement in either the purchase or the sale of a property and it is not a necessary part of the HIP. Costing between approximately £250 or more many sellers consider it to be an expense that they can do without but it does genuinely help to ensure complete transparency in the sale of the property and it will encourage buyers to consider the purchase of your property.