Conveyancing is the legal work that turns an accepted offer into keys in your hand — and for most buyers it is a black box that swallows three or four months. It does not need to be. The process has a fixed sequence of stages, each with a named owner, and once you know the sequence you can tell normal quiet patches from genuine stalls.
This guide walks through each step for England and Wales, with typical timings, the classic delay points, and the specific questions worth asking every week. Nothing here replaces your own solicitor’s advice — it just makes you a better-informed client of theirs.
The shape of the whole thing
A typical freehold purchase runs 12 to 16 weeks from offer accepted to completion; leasehold flats commonly take longer — four to six months is unremarkable — because a management pack has to come from the freeholder or managing agent. Nothing is legally binding on either side until exchange of contracts, which usually happens one to two weeks before completion. That long unprotected period is a defining feature of the English and Welsh system, and it is why chains collapse.
Agree the price, instruct a conveyancer, get your ID checks done.
Local authority, drainage & water, environmental — speed varies by council.
Level 2 or Level 3 inspection; renegotiate now if it finds problems.
Lender values the property, then issues the formal offer.
Deposit paid — from here both sides are legally committed.
The money moves, the keys are released. It’s yours.
Weeks 0–2: instruction and setup
Once your offer is accepted, the estate agent issues a memorandum of sale to both sides’ solicitors. You formally instruct your conveyancer (ideally chosen and quoted before you offered — it saves a week), pay money on account for searches, and complete identity and anti-money-laundering checks, including proving the source of your deposit. Delays here are almost always self-inflicted: slow ID documents, unexplained deposit funds, or not having a solicitor lined up.
In parallel, submit your full mortgage application now. The mortgage offer is frequently the long pole, and it runs independently of the legal work.
Weeks 2–8: searches, enquiries and the draft contract
The seller’s solicitor sends a draft contract pack, including the title from HM Land Registry and the seller’s completed property information forms (TA6) and fittings list (TA10). Your solicitor orders the standard searches: the local authority search (planning permissions, road schemes, enforcement notices), drainage and water, and an environmental search covering flooding and contamination.
Your solicitor then raises enquiries — written questions triggered by the contract pack, the searches and your survey. The seller’s side answers; further rounds follow if the answers are thin. This is the phase where transactions go quiet, and where a weekly nudge genuinely moves things: enquiries sitting unanswered on someone’s desk are the single most common source of drift.
- Local authority search turnaround varies enormously by council — from days to six weeks or more. Ask which council and how long it is currently taking.
- Leasehold? The management pack (LPE1) from the freeholder or agent routinely takes three to six weeks and can cost the seller £200–£500. Ask on day one whether it has been ordered.
- Your survey happens in this window too — book it in week one so its findings feed into the enquiries.
Weeks 8–12: mortgage offer, report on title, deposit
Your lender issues its formal mortgage offer, which goes to your solicitor, who checks its conditions. When searches, enquiries and offer are all in, your solicitor sends you a report on title — the plain-English summary of everything found — plus the contract and mortgage deed to sign. Read the report properly; it is the document that tells you what you are actually buying.
You transfer the exchange deposit — usually 10% of the price, though a lower deposit can be negotiated when your cash deposit is smaller. This is the point of no return approaching: raise anything that bothers you now.
Exchange and completion
At exchange, the solicitors swap signed contracts and your deposit becomes non-refundable: pull out afterwards and you forfeit it, and can be sued for further losses. A completion date is fixed in the contract — commonly one to two weeks later, though same-week and even simultaneous exchange-and-complete happen. Buildings insurance on the property should start at exchange, because risk typically passes to you then.
On completion day, your solicitor sends the balance to the seller’s solicitor; once received, the keys are released — usually by early afternoon. Afterwards, your solicitor pays your stamp duty (the SDLT return is due within 14 days in England; Land Transaction Tax within 30 days in Wales) and registers you as owner at HM Land Registry, which can take weeks to months to show but does not affect your ownership.
All of these sums — duty, legal fees, searches, survey, moving — land in cash during this window, on top of the deposit. Total them before you start, not in week ten:
Fee bands are typical 2025/26 figures and vary by firm, property and region; leasehold purchases usually add a few hundred pounds of extra legal work. Illustration only.
Sources: GOV.UK — buying or selling your home · GOV.UK — Stamp Duty Land Tax
What to chase, weekly
A polite weekly email to your solicitor and the agent, asking specific questions, is the highest-value habit in the whole process. Vague "any update?" messages get vague answers; specific ones get action.
- Have all searches been ordered, and when is the local authority search expected back?
- How many enquiries are outstanding, and how long have they been with the other side?
- Has the mortgage offer been received and checked? Any conditions to satisfy?
- Leasehold: has the management pack arrived? Anything alarming in the service-charge accounts?
- What, specifically, is the next blocking item — and whose desk is it on?
If something goes wrong with the service
Conveyancers in England and Wales are regulated (solicitors by the SRA, licensed conveyancers by the CLC), and if service falls badly short you can complain — first through the firm’s own procedure, then to the Legal Ombudsman. For guidance on costs and choosing a conveyancer in the first place, MoneyHelper has impartial, government-backed material. The best protection, though, is upstream: pick a conveyancer on responsiveness and recommendation, not on the cheapest quote — a £150 saving is poor compensation for a collapsed chain.