Conveyancing is the term that describes the legal process of transferring the ownership of a property from one person to another. Many people are familiar with the concept of conveyancing in relation to the buying and selling of residential properties such as apartments, terraced houses, semi-detached houses, detached houses and mansion houses.

These types of transactions are often carried out by a conveyancing expert such as a solicitor. These experts will be familiar with all the different issues involved in transferring ownership of a residential property from one party to another. It is possible for people to carry out conveyancing themselves. However doing this yourself can have pitfalls for the inexperienced and uninitiated. Many people would say that it is better to pay for an expert to do it. The professional fees involved would be money well spent. One example of something that could go wrong would be not carrying out local searches properly, and therefore not being aware of a local plan to build something detrimental right next to the property that you intend to purchase.

In addition to being applied in connection with the buying and selling of residential properties, the legal process of conveyancing also applies to other types of properties. Commercial properties are an important area in which the skills of conveyancing experts are utilized. Offices are an obvious case, and office blocks in a major city can change hands for many millions of pounds. Many top firms like to own their office premises so that they have a greater guarantee of future stability. Shops and department stores are another example of commercial properties that will require specialist help when their ownership is being transferred.

Hotels, chalets and guest houses are a few examples of commercial properties that will require proper legal processes when their ownership is being transferred from one owner to another. This is particularly important in the case of the largest hotels which can have hundreds of guest rooms, and be worth millions. Restaurants, public houses, bars and night clubs are another sector of commercial property they require specialist skills when their sale or purchase is being handled. These types of commercial properties will often be high-profile and high street brand names, so anything untoward connected with their sale or purchase could cause problems with their brand reputation in addition to the obvious financial problems.

Sometimes we hear about frauds where a person has tried to sell a property to another individual or a company, but the seller does not actually own the property. The individual could be an Arab Sheikh or another super-rich person who has either made vast riches during a business career, or perhaps inherited money. These kinds of fraud situations, or attempted fraud situations, are reported by the media from time to time in the newspapers, on television, radio and of course on the internet. This kind of situation is an excellent example of where effective conveyancing can stop this kind of fraud happening.