The K-Zone: An introduction to the legal aspects of moving house

[Update 01/08: a few years ago, the present UK Government made a commitment to legistlate to compel house vendors to provide a standard set of informational documents to potential buyers: the so-called `buyer's information pack'. At the time of writing, this commitment has just been partially implemented, and some of the following is obsolete. I haven't yet had chance to study the new rules in sufficient detail to update the article, so please read with caution.]

This brief guide is intended to help people who are moving house, or who plan to move house, to make sense of the various legal and other procedures that are involved. However, unlike most introductory writings on this subject, I intend to explain not only what has to be done, but why it has to be done. To that end, I will be using some legal terms and concepts which may be unfamiliar to you; I hope they are explained adequately but, if not, you may find more information in elsewhere on this site, and on my interactive law site. In common with law books, for brevity I abbreviate the person who is buying your house (`the purchaser') to `P', and the person whose house you are buying (`the vendor') to `V' throughout.

Please note that the usual disclaimers apply -- the aim of this article is to explain the often-confusing procedures involved in buying and selling a house; it is not in any sense intended to be a substitute for proper legal advice. For those people who are considering doing their own conveyancing, please bear in mind that mortgage lenders are generally not very happy with this sort of thing, and may not want to do business with you. Those lenders that are more flexible will still want to get legal advice to protect their own interests, the costs of which they will probably pass on to you. So the amount of money to be saved is not that great unless you are in the fortunate position of not needing to borrow money. Please be aware also that the procedures I describe are followed only in England and Wales -- Scotland has a somewhat different system.

Basic principles

The process of buying or selling a house is much more complex than that of buying or selling, say, a car. There are a number of reasons for this, apart from the obvious one that, for most people, a house costs a great deal more money than a car.
      First, land (in the sense of patches of earth) is one of the few natural resources that is genuinely, inescapably limited. We can make more of most things in the world, but the Earth has a finite dry surface area, and everybody wants a piece of it. This means that, as a form of property which can be owned, land is subject to different kinds of controls than other forms of property.
      Second, land can be subject to multiple interests. What this means is that a number of different people can claim rights over the same patch of ground at the same time. If property is subject to a lease, for example, we have to consider the rights of the leaseholder, the rights of the freeholder, the rights of mortgage lenders, and perhaps the rights of other people in the neighbourhood. If a neighbour has a right to walk over your garden to get to his house, that right might be considered as a limited form of ownership of your land (probably an easement, of which more later).
      Third, because of the great social significance of land, land ownership is associated with all sorts of historical baggage and antiquated terminology. To be fair, this particular problem is not as acute in England and Wales as it is in Scotland, as Scotland retained the mediaeval practice of `subinfeudation' (look it up!) a lot longer than England and Wales. Thus the feudal aspects of land ownership in England and Wales are mostly of the form of quaint terminology, rather than real obligations. However, and this brings in my last point, land ownership may carry with it certain obligations. These are unusual, and particularly striking cases tend to make the newspapers. A few years ago there was a minor media storm when a houseowner discovered, to his shock and amazement, that his ownership carried with it an obligation to maintain the local church at his own expense. For houses on the sea front, an obligation to maintain the sea defences is not entirely unheard of. These obligations can be, and are, enforced. So watch out.

Because the nature of land ownership is inherently complex, and buying land is fraught with perils, various safeguards have been put in place over the years to prevent people being financially devastated by their own carelessness. These safeguards can be frustrating and, to be fair, do account for a lot of the delay experienced in house purchases; but they are there to protect the parties to the transaction, primarily from themselves, secondarily from each other.

The first safeguard is that to transfer a `legal estate in land' (that is, a freehold or lease; of which, more later) the seller of the land must use a deed. A deed is more than just a contract; it is a contract accompanied by certain formalities. Historically a deed was not effective unless it was signed, sealed, and delivered. Over the years the formality has been gradually eroded, and the modern distinction between a deed and an ordinary contract is that a deed must be witnessed. This reduces the likelihood that a person can sign the document carelessly, or under duress. In addition, the document must contain some words such as `this document is executed as a deed', to impress on the signatories the formality of the undertaking. So, for V to transfer his property to P, V must execute a deed: he must sign a document expressed to be a deed, and in the presence of at least one witness. In modern terminology the deed that completes the sale transaction is called a deed of transfer, or just a `transfer'. You will also come across the term `deed of conveyance'; the distinction between a transfer and a conveyance stems from the days when not all land was registered with the Land Registry (more later), but is not particularly significant now.
      In modern practice it is almost inconceivable that the execution of a deed of transfer would constitute the entire transaction. Instead, the parties would enter into a contract to execute the deed. Typically this is done two to four weeks before the actual transfer. Unlike the transfer deed, which is usually quite simple, the contract sets out the obligations of the parties to one another in great detail, and may run to many pages of small print. As a matter of statute law this contract must be in writing. If P offers orally to buy V's house, it is irrelevant how earnest the agreement is: it has absolutely no legal consequence. I can wander around offering to buy peoples' houses all day if that's what fills my bucket, safe in the knowledge that I can experience no legal repercussions. I might experience a punch in the face, but that's a different matter. If P offers to buy V's house, P can pull out of the deal at any time, until he signs a written contract. Similarly, P can pull out, and sell his house to someone else, again up until contract. This makes contracts for sale of land different from almost any other contract. In principle, if I make a deal with you in the pub, in which we agree that I will buy your car for ten pounds, then in principle that deal is enforceable in court. If, when you sober up, you realize you've made an egregious error and try to wriggle out of the agreement I can, in principle, go to court to enforce it. I might have a job proving that we had a deal but, if I can, the court must give me satisfaction. This can never be done in land sales and, believe me, people have tried very hard.
     Not only must a contract for sale of land be in writing, it must be signed by both parties. In practice, contracts are `exchanged'; that is, there are two copies of the contract and each party signs both copies.
     The non-binding nature of an oral contract for the sale of land can be quite frustrating if, for example, a buyer seriously wants to buy, but the seller continues to try to sell to someone else after accepting an offer. In principle, the buyer can ask the seller to enter into a contract not to offer the house for sale to anyone else for a certain period of time. This is called in laywer jargon a `lock out agreement'. The status of such agreements is uncertain, but the balance of authority is that they are enforceable, provided the prospective buyer offers something of value (one pound will do, in theory) in return for the promise. An agreement which is not supported by reciprocal obligations is not enforceable, however earnestly intended at the time. The vendor may, for example, sign a document that states that he will not offer the house to anyone else for six weeks but, even if he signs it in his own blood, it is of no consequence unless the purchaser also contributes something. As I said, one pound will do, but it must be something.
     Although P can (probably) extract from V an enforceable promise not to sell to anyone else, there is no legal mechanism by which he can compel V to complete the sale to P himself. An agreement to complete a later contract is called a `lock in' agreement. Despite some intial uncertainty, it now seems clear that such an agreement will never be enforced by the courts. In summary, it is relatively common for parties to a house sale, once they have agreed orally on the basic terms, to enter an agreement to refrain from dealing with any else for a certain period of time. Some estate agents insist on this on behalf of their clients as a matter of routine.

The third safeguard in land transactions is that now most land sales must be registered with a governmental agency, the Land Registry. More on this later. In short, it is now usually possible for a prospective purchaser to find out most of what he needs to know about a property from the central register, rather than by inspecting a pile of decaying and antiquated title deeds (more on this later, as well).

Estates in land -- an aside

There are, as a matter of statute law, only two ways in which land can be `owned' -- freehold and leasehold. You have to be a bit careful about the use of the word `owned' in the context of land because, technically, only the Crown can own land. What the rest of us own is an `estate in land'. This is not important for most purposes, but you'll notice that lawyers and law books shy away from talking about `owning' land. In what follows I will talk about `freehold ownership' rather than `ownership of the freehold estate in land' as it's nearly correct, and much less pompous.
      In simple terms, freehold ownership is of unlimited duration, and the owner's rights are not circumscribed by anybody else's ownership of that land (with the technical exception of the Crown, but that is unlikely to be a concern in practice). A lease is of a finite duration, and the owner of a lease will have rights in the property that are circumscribed by an agreement between himself and the landlord. The landlord may own the freehold, but there is no reason why the landlord should not himself be a leaseholder of a different landlord. Since 2003, a lease of more than seven years is subject to essentially the same conveyancing mechanisms as a freehold, and must be registered with the Land Registry. Before 2003 this only applied to leases over 21 years.
     Despite the similar conveyancing process, the sale of leasehold property is technically much more complex than that of freehold property. There are two reasons for this. First, the buyer will invariably have to assume obligations to his landlord, such as an obligation to maintain the building, and these obligations can be very extensive and technical. Second, the buyer of leasehold property needs to be concerned not only with the investigation of title (ownership) of the person from whom he is buying the lease, but also with the title of the landlord(s) involved. It is entirely possible that the vendor of the lease has a perfect right to sell the lease, but there is some defect in the landlord's ownership of his own interest.

The conveyancing protocol

Most uncomplicated land transactions follow the same basic sequence of steps. These are not governed by any particular legal code -- they are conventions that have been developed over the years by lawyers dealing with land sales. These steps, in outline, are as follows; I use the terms vendor (V) and purchaser (P) but, in practice, their legal advisors will typically do most of the work. Note also that if you are moving house, and are selling and buying at the same time, you will have to complete these steps twice: once as V and once as P. As a technical matter, P does not become the legal owner of the property until the transaction is registered, even if all the other formalities are in place. His ownership is thus somewhat precarious, and registration should proceed without delay. Bear in mind also that, strictly speaking, contracts are exchanged only when both parties sign their parts. If you are buying and selling at the same time, you want to exchange contracts on the purchase and the sale at precisely the same time. Otherwise you could end up in a situation where you are committed to a purchase, but your own purchaser does not sign. This will be very awkward, because most likely you won't have the money to pay the deposit required by your contract with the vendor. Alternatively, you could exchange contracts with your buyer but not with the person from whom you are buying. This could leave you with an obligation to sell your own house, but without a house to move to.
      In practice, therefore, all parties sign the contracts fairly early, and have their legal representatives hold the signed contracts `to their order'. In other words, the lawyers do the actual exchange, perhaps over the telephone, when everybody is ready.

We will now examine the various conveyancing steps, one by one.

Obtaining an agreement to a loan of money

Most people require a loan of money to be able to buy a house, even if they are raising a significant part of the purchase price from selling the house they are leaving. Since these loans frequently run into hundreds of thousands of pounds, the lenders are going to want to be very sure they are making a good investment. The lender will want to ensure that you, the borrower, are likely to be able to repay the loan. The lender will also want to be sure that it will be able to mitigate its losses even if you aren't able to. To that end, most loans for the purchase of land take the form of mortgage loans, of which more later. Conventionally the borrower will obtain an agreement in principle from a lender, before making a formal application for a loan. The formal application is time-consuming and expensive for both parties, but you may have difficulty getting a seller to take your offer to purchase seriously, if you can't show that you have a means to raise the money. An agreement in principle does not bind either party, but does show the seller that you have taken the appropriate steps towards raising the money.

Drafting and negotiation of the contract

It is conventionally the vendor's lawyers that draft the main contract for the sale. In practice, most lawyers will use the standard-form contract provided for this purpose by the Law Society, and just amend it where necessary. The contract should, in nearly all cases, list in some detail what is, or is not, included in the sale. The statutory position is that, if the contract is silent on the matter, the sale includes the land, buildings, fixtures and fittings. There has been considerable disagreement in courtrooms over whether a particular item falls into one of these categories or not (are curtains `fixtures' or not? What about carpets? Is a free-standing garden shed a building?). Consequently, it is always advisable to be clear in the contract. The vendor's solicitor will usually send his or her client a long list of things that are often found about the house, and ask the vendor to tick whichever are to be included in the sale. This list then forms part of the final contract.
      If you are buying a leasehold property, the contract will probably be much more complex than in a freehold. This is because it will set out in detail the obligations that will arise between the landlord and the tenant -- who is responsible for repairs and maintenance; whether there is an ongoing rent commitment or service charge and how it is to be reviewed; what limitations there are in how the property can be used; whether you have to get the approval of the landlord before you can sell the lease to someone else; and so on. If you are selling a lease, you may also be asked to enter into something called an authorized guarantee agreement with the landlord. This is an agreement that you will make good any losses caused to the landlord by the new tenant's bad behaviour. In such situations you will, of course, ensure that the contract for sale allows you to recover those losses from the new owner.

Investigation of title

The motto caveat emptor applies with full force to land transfers. It is absolutely the buyer's responsibility to satisfy himself that the vendor really has the right to sell the house, and that no-one else has interests in the land that will disturb the new purchaser's ownership. The buyer must also be satisfied that the property represents good value for money, and is not falling down. We will return to this point later; for now we are considering the seller's title. By `title' here is meant the rights of ownership that the vendor has.
      The process of investigation of title is largely the same for both freehold and leasehold properties, with the complication that the buyer of a leasehold has to investigate the landlord's title as well, as far as he is able. There are two basic methods V can use to prove his ownership of the property. First, he can show an unbroken chain of valid transfers of the property going back a certain length of time (currently 15 years), and ending with with V himself. This collection of documents is called the title deeds. 15 years does not seem very long when many properties have been standing for centuries. What, you may ask, happens if the land changed hands in a dubious way more than 15 years ago? The answer is a pragmatic one: with this form of conveyancing, no-one is allowed to bring a court action to reclaim disputed land after 12 years, so if the current owner can show he has owned it for 15 years, his ownership cannot really be challenged. This form of proof of title applies only to land which is not registered at the Land Registry. Although about 15% of land in England and Wales is still unregistered, most domestic properties are registered, and it is unlikely that you will need to be concerned with title deeds these days.
     In the far more likely case that the land is registered, V will prove his title by showing that the Land Registry records him as the owner. If the register says that V is the `absolute' owner, this is definitive. It is extremely unlikely that anyone else will be able to mount a challenge to V's ownership. For a leasehold property, a buyer can generally not expect `absolute' title. The reason for this is that the Registrar will only enter absolute title if the owner has shown not only that his claim to the property is perfect, but additionally that his landlord's claim is perfect. Since the leaseholder cannot, in general, compel the landlord to prove his title, the leaseholder will usually not be able to do this. Consequently, the Registrar will enter `good' title against a leaseholder whose own title is perfect, and where there is no reason to believe that the landlord's title is not perfect. In general, any leasehold title other than `good' or `absolute' is suspicious, as is any freeholder title other than `absolute'. Lesser grades of title may be registered because, for example, the occupier was not able to prove his ownership to the registrar's satisfaction when the land was registered. If the register does not show `good' or `absolute' title, the registered owner's title is said to be `defective'. This is not necessarily the end of the transaction -- you may be prepared (after careful consideration and sound legal advice) to buy a property with defects in the title. Where the defects are notional, or not serious, you may be able to take out an insurance policy (`defective title insurance') against the eventuality that someone is able to mount a claim against you.
      As well as investigating whether the seller has good title to sell, you'll also want to investigate any encumbrances on the title. These are rights of third parties to interfere with your use of the land you are buying. In domestic conveyancing there are generally two kinds of encumbrance you will encounter: easements and restrictive covenants. These days, encumbrances should always be obvious from an inspection of the Land Register, but some will be enforceable even if they aren't obvious.
      An easement is a right that someone else has over your land. The easements encountered most commonly are easements of access and easements of light. An easement of access is a right someone else has to enter your land for some purpose -- perhaps for a neighbour to cross your back garden to get to his own. An easement of light is a right for a neighbour to prevent you obstructing light entering his property. Easements don't come out of nowhere -- they will usually have been granted to your neighbours by some previous owner of the land, perhaps centuries ago. Once granted, easements stick like glue to the land, and can be difficult to remove. What makes it worse is that certain easements can be enforced against the landowner even if he was not aware of them when he purchased the land. This is a frequently area of litigation, as you can imagine. This is why you should investigate any suspicious access points onto your land -- they may indicate third-party rights which you should follow up.
      If you live on any kind of housing estate, you'll almost certainly be subject to easements of drainage, preventing you from blocking up shared sewers that cross your land. These are generally unobjectionable and, indeed, essential for proper use of the everybody's land.

A restrictive covenant is an obligation to refrain from doing certain things on the land. In a housing estate, for example, you will almost certainly be prohibited from running a business from your house. This prohibition probably can be enforced by your neighbours, although they may not know this. You may be prohibited from building a fence more than a particular height, or keeping animals, or all sort of other things. Happily, if the land you are buying is registered, these covenants will not be enforceable against you if they are not entered on the Register.

Covenants and easements always have two sides to them -- a benefit and a burden. Naturally you need to ensure that you are not adversely affected by the burden (that is, the obligation); but you also need to verify that you have the benefits where appropriate. For example, if your house is accessible from the rear over a private road or track, do you have an enforceable right to use that access? Or can the owner block it up? The existence of benefits of easements and covenants should be obvious from the Register these days.

As well as investigating whether other private individuals might have rights against the land you are thinking of buying, it is generally necessary to consider also whether the local authority might want to interfere with the land. In particular, you will want to know if your land is subject to a compulsory purchase order, or is on the route of a proposed new motorway. Local authorities have standard forms which must be completed to make such enquiries. Waiting for responses to these forms is, for many people, the slowest part of the pre-contract stage of conveyancing -- it can take up to six weeks. There are a number of private search agencies that undertake to carry out the same kinds of enquiries in a much shorter time. Whether it is possible to employ such an agency depends to a large extent on whether it will satisfy your mortgage lender.

Surveys and valuations

Both you and your lender want to ensure that the property you are buying is good value for money, although your motives are different. The lender will insist on a valuation of the property, and will have a minimum standard to which this valuation must be conducted. Normally the lender will insist on instructing a valuer of its choice, and passing the cost on to you. It's up to you whether you want to instruct your own valuation as well as that of the lender. It is usually cheaper to pay the lender's valuer to do a more extensive survey than it is to instruct a completely independent survey. It is important ot understand that the lender's basic valuation is only concerned with whether the lender will be able to recover its investment if it sells the property; it isn't concerned with the state of the property per se. It may be no consolation to you to find out that the property is good value for money, but it still requires the expenditure of twenty thousand pounds to make it fit to live in.

Exchange of contracts

Once you've established that the property represents good value for money, and you've got an agreement from a lender to advance the required funds, and you've established that the seller has good title to sell, and that the local authority is not planning to build a motorway in the garden, then it's time to make the commitment to purchase, and sign the contract. In the contract you will typically agree to advance a deposit, which is usually 10% of the purchase price. You will also agree (if the seller's lawyers have done their job properly) that the seller can keep all or part of the deposit if you aren't able to complete the transaction and pay the balance of the purchase price. Such an agreement amounts, in principle, to a penalty clause. It's a penalty clause because it is highly likely that the amount of money you would forfeit if you failed to complete the transaction is massively larger than the losses that would be incurred by the seller. The English courts have traditionally been very reluctant to enforce penalty clauses, but they do enforce them for land transactions. If you drop out of a property purchase after exchanging contracts, then you can apply to a court for an order to have your deposit returned; but such orders are rarely granted. This is why a competent conveyancing lawyer will ensure that his or her clients exchange contracts on the sale and the purchase at exactly the same time.
      The contract will typically specify the date on which the transaction will be completed; on this day you will have to pay over the balance of the funds, and conventionally this is when you'll take occupation of your new house. You don't have to move on this date, but most likely someone else will be waiting to get into your house, so you'll need to have alternative accommodation ready if you don't.
      Once you have exchanged contracts, the house you are buying becomes your property `in equity'. This is a highly technical matter, but what it means in practice is that the courts would treat you as the owner if a dispute arose over the property, from the moment contracts are exchanged. This is in spite of the fact that you've only paid 10% of the money. The implication for you is that if the house were to catch fire after exchanging contracts, you could be compelled to pay over the balance of the money on the agreed date, for a pile of smouldering embers. So it will generally be your responsibility to arrange insurance over the property from the date of exchange, not the date you move in. Many contracts explicitly change this position to put the risk onto the seller until completion but, as a buyer, it's worth being absolutely clear about this before deciding you don't need to insure. In any event, many mortgage lenders will ask to see evidence that the buyer has insurance in place before advancing any money, So it's hardly worth trying to save a few weeks' insurance premiums, in my opinion.

Charges and security

Most loans to purchase land take the form of mortgage loans. There is a problem in terminology regarding mortgages, which you need to address if you want to make sense of laywer jargon. A mortgage is not a type of loan. A mortgage is a right over land, granted by the landowner as security for the loan. Technically a mortgage is a kind of charge -- a right formally granted to another person over something you own. You'll often hear people with extensive mortgage loans saying things like ``I don't own my house -- it belongs to the National Friendly Mortgage company'', or whoever. But it doesn't -- when you buy a house using a mortgage loan, you own it. What the lender `owns' is a charge -- a right to exercise certain unpleasant sanctions against you. It is you, the owner of the land, that grants to the lender the right to exercise these sanctions. Like other interests in land, this grant has to be made in a deed, so you can't do it carelessly. Typically you will enter into a contract to execute the deed, in the same way and at the same time as you exchange contracts on the main sale and purchase.
      The rights that the lender will acquire are extensive; the lender won't make the loan otherwise. Most obviously, the lender will get the right to take occupation of your property if you default on the payments (exactly how serious the default has to be is usually set out in the mortgage contract). The lender will also be able to sell your house, against your wishes, in certain circumstances. However, if your house is where you actually live (rather than, say, a business premises), you have the right to apply to the court for relief if the lender makes such a claim; traditionally the courts have been quite sympathetic to people who have run into temporary financial difficulties, particularly if the lender has behaved badly. However, it is not a foregone conclusion that the court will grant relief -- you could be out on the streets. The lender also gets the right -- which is very rarely exercised these days -- to apply to the court for foreclosure. If the court orders foreclosure, then the property simply comes into the ownership of the lender, and the borrower's rights are extinguished. Foreclosure is a blunt instrument, and is not often allowed, but remains a possibility.
      In short, the protection the mortgage lender gets is the ability to sell your house from under you in the event that you default on the loan repayments. This is only useful to the lender if the sale is likely to realize at least a substantial part of the investment. So, if you are considering buying a house with the aid of a loan, the lender is at least as concerned as you that the house represents good value for money. The lender is also at least as concerned as you that the seller has good title to the property. If it is poor value, or the title is defective, the lender may not be able to realize its security if you default. All this means that the lender will want to satisfy itself of the good sense of the purchase as much as you will. Now, some lenders will instruct their own lawyers to investigate the seller's title, but most will rely on yours. After all, if your lawyer is doing the job properly on your behalf, he or she is doing what the lender needs done as well. Ultimately this is also the reason why it is not usually a big money-saver to do the conveyancing yourself. The lender won't trust you to do a proper job, even if it might trust a solicitor. Pragmatically, it isn't really a matter of trust, but of insurance. Solicitors have insurers to pay up when they are successfully sued; you don't.

Priority search

Assuming that the land you are buying is registered, you will enter a priority search at the Land Registry shortly before completion of the transaction. This will reveal if the seller has done anything naughty with the property since you exchanged contracts (such as selling a lease of it to someone else), and will prevent any further dealing with the land for thirty days.

Completion

On the appointed day, the seller will sign the deed of transfer, accept the balance of payment, and move out. If you are buying the property jointly with another person (your spouse, for example), the deed will state how ownership is to be divided between the new owners. Your choices, put simply, are `joint tenants' and `tenants in common'. Note that the word `tenant' in this context has nothing to do with the use of the word in the context of the landlord-tenant relationship. Tenant here simply means `owner'. As `joint tenants', the various owners have no individual share of the property; they all own all of it. As `tenants in common', each owns a particular share of the value. Suppose, for example, that a husband and wife buy a house between them. They could agree, for example, to be tenants in common of 50% of the value each, or they could be joint tenants of 100% of the value. You may think that this is academic nit-picking, and the final result will be the same. But it's not, and the reason it's not is because one day you're going to die -- it's the one thing I can say with certainty on this subject. When you do eventually kick the bucket, it will matter whether you are a joint tenant or a tenant in common of your house. If you are a tenant in common, you have an identified share of the house which you can bequeath in your will as you see fit. If you are a joint tenant, you don't have a share to bequeath. So your interest in the property will simply vanish, and be taken up by the other co-owner(s). It isn't correct to say that they `inherit your share', because technically you don't have a share. However, that is the practical consequence. For married couples, joint tenancy is usually appropriate, because it is administratively simpler; if one partner dies the other will automatically take the whole interest in the property, with or without a will to that effect. If the surviving partner wants to sell, it will be much easier because he or she won't have to worry about where the other partner's share in the property has gone. However, in most other circumstances where property is jointly owned, it is safer to go for tenancy in common, because everybody has a defined share.
      On completion day, as the purchaser you will also become liable for the apalling and catastrophic stamp duty. Stamp duty is a kind of tax designed to discourage people from moving house. Currently stamp duty is 1% of the purchase price for purchases up to £250,000, and 3% for larger amounts. It's a lot of money, and something you need to take into account when deciding whether you can afford to move.

P registers the transaction at the Land Registry

The last step in the process is to register your new ownership at the Land Registry. You don't become formally the legal owner until this is done. If the house you are buying is unregistered, it is your responsibility to apply for first registration when you move in.

And finally...

A few words on how much this all costs. Let's assume you are buying a house for £300,000, and selling for £250,000. Here is a rough idea of how much it's going to cost to move house.
Lawyer's fees £1000-£3000
Removal expenses £200-£1000, depending on how much stuff you have, and how far you're moving
Land Registry and search fees ~£150
Survey/valuation £200-£800, depending on how thorough you want it to be
Mortgage lender's expenses ~£200
Stamp duty £9000 (ouch!)
So the overall cost will be of the order of ~£12000, of which the lion's share goes direct to the Treasury.
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