How long does conveyancing take when selling?

If you are selling your home, the gap between accepting an offer and getting the money is rarely as short as people expect. Most of that gap is conveyancing. Knowing how the time is spent makes the wait less unsettling and shows you where you can actually move the needle.

What is conveyancing?

Conveyancing is the legal process that transfers ownership of a property from one person to another. A solicitor or licensed conveyancer handles it for each side of the sale.

For you as the seller, conveyancing means proving you own the property, answering the buyer's legal questions, drafting the contract, and arranging the formal transfer of title at HM Land Registry. None of it happens until an offer is accepted, and most of it happens out of your sight.

How long does conveyancing take in 2026?

The HomeOwners Alliance puts the typical 2026 conveyancing timeline at 12 to 16 weeks from offer accepted to completion. Industry transaction data shows the picture has been getting slower, not faster.

Research from conveyancing software firm Ochresoft, reported by Today's Conveyancer in March 2025, found the average time from a conveyancer being instructed to completion on a sale was 160 days in 2024, up from 159 days in 2023. A purchase averaged 120 days in 2024. Those figures are averages, so a clean sale can be faster and a complicated one slower.

These stages overlap rather than run one after another. The mortgage offer and the searches usually progress at the same time. The slowest stage in the chain sets the pace for everything else.

What are the main stages of a sale?

1. Instructing a solicitor or licensed conveyancer to act for you.
2. Your solicitor preparing the draft contract and the standard property forms.
3. The buyer's solicitor ordering searches with the local council and other bodies.
4. The buyer's solicitor raising enquiries, which your side answers in writing.
5. The buyer's lender issuing a formal mortgage offer.
6. Exchange of contracts, the point at which the sale becomes legally binding.
7. Completion, when the money moves and the property changes hands.

What slows conveyancing down?

A few recurring problems account for most delays. They are worth knowing about because some are within your control and some are not.

Local authority searches are the largest single bottleneck. The HomeOwners Alliance notes that searches should take 10 working days, yet some councils take more than 25. A search is a set of official checks on planning, road status, and local plans that affect the property.

Chains are the next common cause. A chain is a line of linked sales where each move depends on the one before it. If one transaction in the chain stalls, every sale in it waits.

Leasehold properties run longer than freehold ones. A leasehold property is one where you own the home for a fixed term but not the land it sits on. Today's Conveyancer reported in 2026 that leasehold transactions took around 155 days to reach exchange against 97 days for freehold, a gap of roughly 58 days, largely because of the wait for a management pack from the freeholder or managing agent.

Slow mortgage processing and missing paperwork round out the list. A buyer's lender can take weeks to issue a formal offer, and a seller who cannot find a planning certificate or a guarantee will hold up the enquiries stage.

How can a seller speed it up?

You cannot control the council or the buyer's lender. You can control your own readiness, and that is where most savings are found. A seller who prepares well can realistically cut completion to 6 to 8 weeks, according to 2026 conveyancing timeline guidance.

• Instruct a solicitor before you list, not after you accept an offer, so your file is open and ready.
• Gather your paperwork early: title deeds, planning permissions, building regulation certificates, guarantees, and the energy performance certificate.
• Complete the standard property information forms while the home is still on the market.
• If the property is leasehold, ask your managing agent for the management pack as soon as you decide to sell.
• Reply to your solicitor's questions quickly; a one-day reply keeps the file moving where a two-week reply stalls it.
• Choose your buyer with the chain in mind, not only the offer figure.

That last point matters more than most sellers expect. A slightly lower offer from a chain-free buyer can complete faster and more reliably than a higher offer from a buyer stuck behind two other sales.

Where does choosing the right agent fit in?

Conveyancing is legal work, but the agent you pick shapes how smoothly it runs. A good agent keeps the chain talking, chases enquiries, and flags problems before they become delays. A weak one lets the file drift.

The sale also starts on your terms, not the agent's. You decide when to list, which offer to take, and how the timeline runs. That is the principle behind ValuQ: selling starts with your decision, not theirs.

The fastest sale is rarely the one with the highest offer. It is the one where the seller was ready before the buyer arrived.

Comparing agents properly before you commit is part of that readiness. ValuQ gives UK homeowners free, side-by-side property valuations from competing local estate agents. You see how each agent values your home and how they plan to sell it, on one screen, before you speak to anyone.

For more on the wider picture, see our guides on how council search delays are slowing UK house sales in 2026, how long it takes to sell a house in the UK, and the legal requirements for selling a house.