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Practice areas

Conveyancing Law and Practice

Rolleston McElwee Solicitors LLP strives to provide a conveyancing service that is completed to the highest of regulatory standards. We can provide you with an extensive range of property law services, some of which include:

  • Property Purchases
  • Property Sales
  • Property Dispute Litigation
  • Title Rectification
  • Co-ownership Agreements
  • Remortgages
  • Family Transfer of Property
  • Property Probate Sales
  • Boundary Issues

We understand that transactions involving property can be a stressful experience. Whether you are a first time buyer or whether you wish to sell and purchase an alternative property, we will provide you with a professional service accompanied by an extensive knowledge of property law. Please see our purchaser instruction sheet or vendor instruction sheet (whichever is applicable to your situation)(link) prior to meeting with your solicitor in order to ensure that the process runs as efficiently as possible.

Purchasing a Property

When you have chosen the property that you wish to purchaser, you will pay a booking deposit to the Auctioneer. This deposit is refundable should you decide not to proceed with the purchase.

We as your solicitor will:

  • Receive the sales advice note from the Auctioneer.
  • Issue you with a section 150 letter setting out our terms of engagement and fees.
  • Act upon your instructions. We will enclose a pre-contract questionnaire for you to complete.
  • Require your ID and proof of address
  • Seek the contract for sale from the Vendor’s Solicitor. We will investigate the title and analyse the contracts.
  • Ask you to instruct an engineer to prepare an engineer’s report having inspected the property.
  • Arrange for you to come to our office to explain your loan documents and other relevant documents to you and to allow you to sign both the contracts and the relevant loan documents.
  • Notify the vendors solicitor when we receive funds from your mortgage bank and request the closing documents
  • Forward the closing balance to the vendors solicitor and when we are satisfied that all procedures have been followed and all the obligations have been fulfilled, the keys will be released to you.
  • We will then stamp your transfer deed and lodge the relevant documents in the Property Registration Authority.
  • The PRA will then issue a completion notice and we will return all title documents to the bank where they will remain for the duration of your mortgage.

It is important to note that Stamp Duty is a tax payable to the Revenue and is charged at 1% of the purchase price of the property for properties up to €1 million. Stamp Duty is currently charged at 7.5% for non-residential properties such as sites, agricultural and commercial land and properties with certain exemptions such as new builds and family farm transfers.

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Selling a Property

What documents will my solicitor require?

  • The location of your title documents are, if your title deeds are with a bank we will write to your bank seeking your title documents by Accountable Trust Receipt with your written authority.
  • A Local Property Tax printout showing local property tax paid to current year end. Upon closing, your solicitor will complete an LPT Apportionment Account.
  • A receipt or Certificate of Discharge showing that the Household Charge has been discharged.
  • A Certificate of Exemption or Discharge for NPPR (applied from 2009 to 2013).
  • Details of your water and drainage supply.
  • If you have a septic tank on the property, we will require evidence of its registration with Protect our Water.
  • A copy of your state marriage or civil partnership certificate (and copy of separation agreement or divorce, if applicable).
  • A BER Certificate.
  • Details of any building work you have done with copies of any planning permissions and architects’ certificates of compliance and building regulations or exemption from planning as appropriate.
  • If your property is in a managed development, we will require contact details for the management.
  • Your ID such as a passport, or driving licence and also a utility bill or bank statement (within the last 3 months) to prove your address and also we will require your PPS number.

Prior to attending at our office, please see our Vendors Questionnaire/Checklist for a list of the information and documents that your solicitor will require in order to ensure the process runs as efficiently and as quickly as possible for you.

We will require you to sign various documents throughout the process some of which will include the Contract for Sale, the Family Home Declaration and the Section 72 Declaration, the legal ramifications of which will be explained to you when you meet with your solicitor. Prior to closing we will write to your mortgage bank seeking a redemption figure for the date of closing. When we are in receipt of closing funds, we will then pay the required amount to the bank and we will then furnish you with a closing account and transfer the balance of the proceeds of sale to you.

Voluntary Transfer

A Voluntary Transfer arises in circumstances where one family member wishes to transfer property to another as a gift. The legal document that transfers the property from the transferor to the transferee is called the Deed of Transfer. It is important to note that both parties involved in a transfer must be each represented by a different solicitor in order to ensure that both sides are protected from any claim of duress or undue influence. A transfer is a transaction that does not involve payment of money; instead the property is transferred “for the natural love and affection” of the parties. If the property to be transferred is in the name of both you and your spouse then you will both be required to sign the deed of transfer.


You can only transfer property if you are solvent, therefore, you will be required to execute a declaration of solvency confirming that you are capable of satisfying your debts as they fall due. It is also the case that if the property to be transferred is mortgaged then the written consent of the bank to the transfer will need to be obtained. A map will then have to be marked by a surveyor in order to subdivide the folio. Subsequent to registration, the site transferred will have its own folio. Once the Deed of Transfer has been signed, the deed will be stamped and lodged in the Property Registration Authority and a dealing number will be assigned to the application.