The client questions conveyancers hear most — and where to send each one

Property transactions generate questions the retainer never mentioned. Should we hold as joint tenants or tenants in common? — yours, and one of the few moments clients will ever think about survivorship. Mum's giving us £60,000 towards the deposit — is that a problem? — partly yours (source of funds, the lender's gift letter), partly an inheritance tax question that is not. Do we need wills now we own a house? Should we put the house in trust? Is repayment or interest-only better? What do we do with the sale proceeds while we rent? Clients ask because you are the lawyer they are actually speaking to that month, and because completion day concentrates the mind wonderfully. The volume is predictable: a busy conveyancer hears some version of the gifted-deposit question weekly — which makes a standard, compliant response less a nicety than basic kit.

The tenure question is squarely conveyancing, though its consequences — what happens on death, on divorce, on one owner's bankruptcy — reach into estate planning, and flagging that reach is good practice. The gifted deposit splits cleanly: documenting the gift for the lender is yours; whether it starts a seven-year inheritance tax clock for the parents is a planning question for someone else. Mortgage product choice is regulated mortgage advice, requiring FCA permissions conveyancers do not hold. Anything about investing sale proceeds is regulated investment advice — same answer, firmer. And put the house in trust deserves particular caution: schemes promising to shelter homes from care fees have a long record of failing deliberate-deprivation tests, and a client who read about one online needs a specialist, not encouragement. The pattern: answer the property law, name the adjacent question out loud, and route it.

Short and learnable. Inheritance tax on gifted deposits, wills after purchase, trusts, severing a joint tenancy as part of estate planning: a will specialist or estate planner — and note that buying a home is the single most common trigger for a first will, so the referral practically makes itself. Mortgage product questions: a mortgage adviser with FCA permissions. Sale proceeds, bridging between properties, equity released by downsizing: a regulated financial adviser, verifiable on the FCA Register. Suspected fraud — the buyer being rushed into an odd payment route, the seller emailed new bank details: your own fraud procedures first, then Action Fraud. Timing is the conveyancer's edge. A will referral made at completion, when the client has just acquired the largest asset of their life and is briefly, unusually receptive to paperwork, converts at rates other professionals can only envy.

Most conveyancers already flag these issues; fewer close the loop. The difference is a process: a standard paragraph in the completion letter noting that property ownership changes estate planning needs; a named introduction to a vetted specialist rather than you may wish to seek advice; and disclosure, in writing, of any referral arrangement — which regulatory transparency expectations point towards anyway. Files benefit too: a documented referral shows the issue was raised and routed, useful if a client later claims nobody mentioned the joint tenancy consequences. Some firms run this through referral platforms — SmartPeer, for example, tracks introductions to vetted advisers and generates the client disclosure letters. The commercial upside is quiet but real: clients transact property a few times in a lifetime, but the professionals you refer to remember every introduction. A conveyancer at the centre of a good referral network stops being a one-transaction relationship.