Our Guide to Conveyancing

Home Our Services Residential Conveyancing Our Guide to Conveyancing

Understanding the role of a conveyancer can really support your journey. When it comes to buying your home or any other property you will need the help of professionals that you can trust.

Residential Conveyancing

Conveyancing concerns the legal transfer (or conveyance) of a property by its legal owner, the seller, to a buyer and the preparation of all the necessary documents to give the sale legal effect.

Conveyancing involves investigation of the legal title by the buyer’s conveyancer, enquiries of the seller about the property being sold, local authority and water searches to find out what restrictions or charges may affect the property and to ensure that it is legally transferred to the buyer on completion when the title is transferred, the purchase price is paid and that the buyers’ legal title is registered at the Land Registry.

The conveyancing process usually involves a number of parties, including solicitors or conveyancers for the buyer and the seller, estate agents, lenders and surveyors. A good conveyancing lawyer will ensure that all of these parties work well together so that you can concentrate on the practical aspects of moving home.

What are the benefits of using local conveyancing solicitors?

Challenor Gardiner is a long established Oxford firm of solicitors. We know about the property market in the area and regularly deal with all the local estate agents. Our offices are located in the centre of Oxford, close to the train, coach and bus stations and most bus routes into the City.

Meet our Residential Conveyancing Team

Curtis Rogers joined the firm in 2014 and in our busy conveyancing department and is Head of Conveyancing. Curtis graduated from the University of Cambridge and completed his training contract with Legal 50 City firm MacFarlanes before qualifying as a solicitor in 2013

Gary Kwek joined us in the spring 2017 working alongside Curtis in our busy conveyancing department. Gary qualified as a solicitor in 1998 and has over 23years’ experience in residential conveyancing.

Alexia White gained a 1st class LLB (Hons) degree from the University of Central Lancashire in 2012 and has recently completed her PhD in International Law. Alexia first began working for us full-time in our conveyancing department in 2012 and spent 2 years before taking a career break to start her family and working for another local firm of solicitors in their conveyancing department. Alexia re-joined us as a part-time conveyancing paralegal in 2017.

Gloria Asaaga began her legal career in 2014 as a legal secretary in a large commercial practice in Oxfordshire before changing firms to be a residential conveyancing paralegal. After a short career break to start a family, Gloria joined us in 2019 as a residential conveyancing paralegal and began her solicitors training contract a year later.

Isabella Cook joined the firm in June 2023 as a paralegal after graduating in Law from Oxford Brookes University. Isabella provides valuable assistance to our busy team of lawyers in the conveyancing department.

Why instruct Challenor Gardiner on your sale or purchase?

As this is probably going to be the most important transaction of your life it pays to instruct an experienced conveyancer to do the legal work. At Challenor Gardiner our residential conveyancing lawyers have many years’ experience acting for clients buying and selling property and also acting for their lenders in the transaction.

Not only that, we have been accredited specialists under The Law Society’s Conveyancing Quality Scheme (CQS) since 2013 and have to meet the schemes stringent quality standards.

We also have the Law Society’s quality mark Lexcel V6 accreditation and we offer excellent client service, cost efficiency and minimum risks and work to the highest standards.

We are committed to delivering the best client service and make sure that we understand and deliver what you expect. We aim to deliver a personal and friendly service where your chosen solicitor will handle your transaction from start to finish and will meet with you to go through the paperwork and sign the necessary legal documents.

Types of property transactions we deal with

Our residential conveyancing services provide our clients with the right legal advice on all manners of property transactions selling and buying freehold and leasehold properties. We endeavour to ensure all transactions proceed as smoothly and as efficiently as possible, keeping our clients up to date at key stages in the transaction.

We deal with the following types of property transactions:

  • Buying or Selling
  • Freehold and Leasehold
  • Equity release
  • Transfers of Equity
  • Re-mortgaging
  • Auctions
  • Buy-to-Let
  • Shared Ownership
  • First registrations
  • Leasehold Enfranchisement
  • Help to Buy
  • New Builds

A Quick Guide to the House-buying Transaction

In this brief guide to residential conveyancing, we look at what the solicitors do, the main steps involved in the process and some of the key issues a buyer or seller needs to be aware of.

What are the stages in the process? Once the price of the property being conveyed has been agreed, there are a number of steps your solicitor will go though:

All initial enquiries are without cost or obligation, so please call us now on 01865 721451 or, email info@challenor-gardiner.co.uk or complete our Free Online Enquiry contact form to discover your bespoke fixed price quotation