Conveyancing Solicitors in Bradford

Online Conveyancing in Bradford

There isn't really any such thing as online conveyancing. Clients come to us for conveyancing in Bradford, Shipley, Thornton and all sorts of other places, having first found us via our website.

After that, the relationship between you and your conveyancer is the same as any other. We have the same professional obligations towards you, and deal with your conveyancing file in the same way.

It might feel like online conveyancing because you can talk to us through email on your computer, but really it is proper conveyancing.

Search Fees in Bradford

Every local authority is different. We use an excellent, trusted national search provider, which means we can provide searches to clients in Bradfordand all over the country, knowing that we will get a product we're happy with and which we know is properly insured and protects your interests.

What is the process to instruct us for your conveyancing?

First, fill in our conveyancing quote form for conveyancing in Bradford. You can find the links at the top of this page.

Our helpful conveyancing support team will then guide you through the initial stages, and once your conveyancing file is opened your Bradford conveyancing solicitor and their small team will deal with the legal side of the conveyancing transaction. You'll be given direct contact details for your conveyancing lawyers and they'll keep in touch with you every step of the way.

Whether you're moving to Bradford or away from Bradford to somewhere else, our conveyancing team can help you do so with the minimum of fuss and inconvenience.

Fees for conveyancing in Bradford

Our fees are transparent and, so long as the situation does not change (for example so long as your property doesn't turn out to be leasehold when we thought it was freehold) the fee we quote is the fee you will be charged.

We don't add extras on for things like photocopying, postage, or the like. Those are our overheads and we don't pass them on to you.

All our conveyancing fees are dependent on the nature and value of the transaction, so we naturally charge a bit more for more complicated and high value work. However, the fee charged will be the same for a customer in Newcastle as it would be for someone in London, or indeed in Bradford.

There are some aspects of our conveyancing fees which we can't change. Fees charged by other bodies such as HM Land Registry, or by HMRC for Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) are out of our control.

Introduction to Bradford

The City of Bradford is situated in West Yorkshire, approximately 9 miles west of Leeds and 16 miles northwest of Wakefield. Its city status was granted upon its wider metropolitan borough as of 1974. The origin of the place name Bradford comes from ‘broad ford.’

Situated at the foothills of the Pennines, Bradford is part of the West Yorkshire conurbations with a population of 1.5million people (as of 2001), making it the fourth largest urban area in the UK. The Bradford district covers the areas of Keighley, Shipley, Bingley, Ilkley, Haworth, Silsden and Haworth. It is bordered by Leeds to the east, Calderdale to the southwest, Kirklees to the southeast and Craven and Harrogate to the northwest and northeast.

More than half of the district is rural. It is a classic Yorkshire landscape with expansive open green spaces and a mixture of heather moorlands, steep sided valleys and floodplains that stretch out across the Airedale Valley and the Wharfedale Valley. Ilkley Moor, The Yorkshire Dales National Park, the popular walking route of the Pennine Way and the Peak District are very accessible and within easy reach of the city.

These were the landscapes that inspired the great works of the Bronte Sisters who were born in Thornton, Bradford. The famous Bronte family later moved to the Bronte Parsonage at nearby Haworth which is where their great works of English Literature including Jayne Eyre, Wuthering Heights and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall were written.

The area rose to prominence during the 19th century as a result of its textile industry, most notably wool. The city, during this time and since, has attracted workers from all over Europe and the British Empire and has become well known as a cultural melting pot of people from Irish, Italian, German, eastern European, Caribbean and Asian descent.

Sir Titus Salt was a notable local figure associated with Bradford’s textile empire and left behind an impressive legacy.  He was, a wealthy cloth merchant and mill owner who founded the Victorian model village of Saltaire for his mill workers. Located in Shipley, three miles north of Bradford, next to the River Aire and the Leeds Liverpool Canal, Salt’s Mill and the village of Saltaire are considered a local historical gem. Saltaire is comprised of rows of workers houses, shops, gardens, sports fields, allotments, a school, a hospital and a chapel. In recognition of its historical and architectural importance Saltaire has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site and an Anchor Point of the European Route of Industrial Heritage. Salt’s Mill, a Grade II listed former textile mill built by Sir Titus Salt in 1853, is set within the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Saltaire, and is now an art gallery, shopping centre and restaurant complex. The 1853 Gallery is of particular interest, having various works of local artists including exhibits by one of Bradford’s, if not the world’s, most celebrated artists, David Hockney.

Since the decline of the textile industry from the mid-20th century, the city has since become a popular tourist destination, especially as the first UNESCO city of film, due to attractions such as the National Media Museum, Bradford City Park and The Alhambra theatre.

The National Science and Media Museum (formerly the National Media Museum) was founded in 1983 and is now part of the National Science Museum Group. It is the home to a specialist research facility and several floors of galleries and exhibitions relating to photography, television, amination, videogaming, the internet and the science of light and colour. It is one of the most visited museums in the North of England and outside of London,  being voted the best indoor visitor attraction in Yorkshire by the public in 2011. The museum plays host to festivals celebrating all things film, including the Bradford International Film Festival. Within the museum complex are three cinemas, run in partnership with Picturehouse Cinemas, which include the giant IMAX screen and the Pictureville Cinema which David Puttnam, a leading British film producer, described as the best cinema in Britain.

Visitors may also choose to visit the many shopping centres that the city has to offer including the Kirkgate Shopping Centre, the Forster Square Shopping Park or The Broadway which opened in 2015 at the cost of £260 million. There is also the subterranean Sunbridge Wells shopping centre, recently opened in 2016 and cleverly converted out of a series of old Victorian tunnels which now incorporates bars, restaurants and retail units.

Bradford has a number of impressive and historic listed buildings. Its oldest building is Bradford Cathedral. There are also some excellent examples of medieval buildings and a range of Victorian buildings, of which the latter are Grade II listed. Examples of Bradford’s impressive buildings from the Victorian era include: The gothic style City Hall of 1873, with its huge clock tower in the style of the Pallazzo Vecchio in Florence; the Wool Exchange and St George’s Hall which is a grand concert Hall that was built in 1853, making it the oldest of its kind in Britain and the third oldest in Europe. A notable Edwardian building is the grand Cartwright Hall, located in Lister Park just a short distance outside of the city centre and home to Bradford’s civic art gallery. Opened in 1904, it houses a permanent collection of Edwardian and Victorian works of art that were acquired in the 1904 Bradford Exhibition. Lister Park is one of thirty-seven parks and gardens in the city and, with its boating lake and Mughal Water Gardens, was voted Britain’s Best Park in 2006.

City Park, opened in 2012 and to the cost of £24.5 million, is one of the newest additions to the city’s landscape. The area in the city centre has been made into a public park with fountains, a mirror pool, benches and a walk way.

Bradford has a well-earned reputation for being the home of some of the finest Asian cuisine in the country. Recently, the city has been crowned the Curry Capital of the UK for a record breaking six years in a row from 2010-2016. Places to visit for a top curry in Bradford houses include Akbars, Kiplings, Aakash and Shimla Spice.

Bradford is very close to the M62 corridor, and many visitors approach Bradford from the South by travelling the short distance from the M62 on the M606. The city centre is accessed by multiple trunk roads such as the A647 between Halifax and Leeds as well as the A650 between Wakefield and Keighley and finally A658 from Harrogate. In terms of railway, the Forster Square railway station was opened on the 1st July 1846 and has been rebuilt 3 times since then; in the early 1850s, 1890 and 1990. This station connects Bradford to Leeds and other small towns North of Bradford such as Ilkley and Skipton. However, the main train station which connects Bradford to the main railway network is the Bradford Interchange, which was built in the early 1970’s. Leeds Bradford Airport is the region’s largest airport and has ambitious expansion plans over the next ten years.

The University of Bradford received its royal charter in 1966 and has since developed massively, and now boasts over 10,000 students. The Times Higher Education Supplement of 2005 ranked Bradford second best in the UK for graduate employment. The University of Bradford School of Management, located on Emm lane near to Lister Park, was recently rated the 14^th best business school in the UK by the Financial Times.

Bradford College based on Great Horton Road, close to the city centre, is a large further and higher education college with approximately 25,000 students.

Recent Ofsted reports rank Bradford’s schools amongst the best in the UK, two of which are Bradford Grammar School and Bradford Girls Grammar School which was recently ranked the top school in Bradford and amongst the top three in Yorkshire.

Bradford also has a successful sporting background, firstly with The Bradford Bulls Rugby League team who have proved to be one of the most successful clubs in the world, having won the World Club Championship three times (since 2002) and Rugby Football League Championship seven times.

Bradford Bulls, formerly known as Bradford Northern, play at Odsal Stadium near the top of the M606 and the Richard Dunn Sports Centre. The club formed in 1907 and has enjoyed a lot of success including winning the league six times and Challenge Cup five times. In recent years the Bulls have hit the headlines as a result of financial distress, having fallen into administration in 2012, 2014 and 2016 and, ultimately, in 2017 into a liquidation. The team, which managed to form a “new club”, suffered a points deduction and were relegated in 2017. In 2018, Bradford Bulls will play in the Kingston Press League One alongside other local teams Hunslet and Keighley Cougars.

Bradford City Football Club was formed in 1903 and has since then developed as a club, now competing in The Football League One. Bradford City AFC nicknamed the Bantams play in the third tier of English Football playing at Valley Parade on Manningham Road. The team has spent just two seasons in the top division (1999-2001) and has had significant success in cup competitions in recent years being the only fourth tier football team to ever reach a major Wembley Cup Final (2013) and have beaten both Arsenal (2013) and Chelsea (2015) in cup competitions.

Bradford has been home to many famous people including, from the world of the arts and literature David Hockney (artist), the writers from the Bronte family; Anne, Charlotte, Emily and Branwell all born in Thornton on the outskirts of Bradford and often associated with Haworth which is just nine miles from Bradford city centre.  Politicians Barbara Castle and Alastair Campbell are from the Bradford and Keighley areas respectively, and TV personalities Ricky Wilson (singer of The Kaiserchiefs and former judge on The Voice) and Alan Titchmarsh (gardener and novelist) were born in Keighley and nearby Ilkley respectively.

Wm Morrisons Supermarket, was founded in 1899, and has risen from a meagre market stall in Bradford to the countries fourth largest chain of supermarkets headquartered on the outskirts of the city. In 2008 Ken Morrison retired as Chairman having worked at the Company for 55 years and the Company has experienced a number of strategic re-directions in the period since his retirement.