COVID UPDATE: Residential House Transactions in Alert Level 4 / Tier 4 Areas

The current guidance allows for residential house sales and purchases that are situated within Alert Level 4 / Tier 4 areas in England and Wales to proceed. However, as a seller and/or a buyer, you need to be alert to the risks involved. As well as being prepared to be as flexible as possible, you will need to accept that the process may be slow due to delays with mortgage offers, surveys and searches, as well as delays caused by parties in your chain having to self-isolate.

As you are most likely aware, the UK Government and Welsh Government introduced a Stamp Duty Land Tax/Land Transaction Tax (SDLT/LTT) payment holiday. This holiday is due to end on 31 March 2021. At the moment it does not look like this holiday will be extended. We are watching this carefully.

The speed at which the different parties to the conveyancing transaction proceed is outside of our control and we therefore can offer you no guarantee that your purchase will be completed before the SDLT/LTT payment holiday comes to an end. You should ensure that your transaction is still affordable for you if completion does go beyond 31 March 2021.

Due to Covid and the lockdown restrictions that have been implemented throughout the year, mortgage lenders, search providers, surveyors and conveyancers have all had to adapt their working practices and, as a result, turnaround times are longer. Lockdowns have also resulted in volumes of new instructions in large waves rather than the steady flow that we would normally experience throughout a year.

Due to these volumes and the demanding deadlines now in place, our hardworking team members are under immense pressure.

To this end we ask that you only contact us via telephone if your enquiry is urgent. We have processes in place to update you regularly via email and/or text message and we encourage you to email us or use our Live Chat facility for any general enquiries.

We know that this is a stressful time, but please be reassured that we will do all that we can.

For more information on moving home during alert level 4 of the pandemic please click here 

Thank you for instructing JCP Solicitors and your continued support.