Conveyancing solicitors in Wakefield

If you are looking for a conveyancing solicitor in Wakefield we can help you. Our conveyancing solicitors offer a convenient, efficient, and friendly conveyancing service to clients in Wakefield, throughout West Yorkshire and all over England, Wales and beyond.

If you are buying a detached house in Wakefield, selling a terraced house in Thornes, downsizing to a bungalow in Flanshaw, or buying to let in Belle Vue, we can help you with your conveyancing.

Why should you use Bird and Co Solicitors for your conveyancing in Wakefield?

We offer a friendly, modern and efficient service. If you want to deal with proper lawyers who are friendly and approachable, our team can help you.

You will have a direct line straight through to your legal team, and direct email addresses. You can guarantee that your query will reach the right people, whether you want to ask about search fees in Wakefield, drainage and water fees in West Yorkshire or something else.

"The team always provided me with clear, pragmatic and commercially viable advice with efficient and focused communication."

We're a Conveyancing Quality Scheme accredited firm providing conveyancing to clients in Wakefield. This is a guarantee that our processes and procedures have been approved, that we operate to a certain standard, and is a mark of the excellence of our service approved by the Law Society, the body which represents solicitors throughout England and Wales.

We are on the panel for most major lenders, and many smaller ones too. Whether you want to use your local Building Society in West Yorkshire or one of the larger corporates, chances are we have you covered.

In short, you get an excellent conveyancing service at an affordable price. You don't have the risk of going to the cheapest providers, most of whom aren't solicitors; instead you get a great service from proper lawyers.

Why don't you need a conveyancer based in Wakefield?

In the old days you used your local solicitor. You would visit their office in the centre of Wakefield, and all documents would be hand-produced and posted or delivered by hand.

That service came at a price, but the truth is that it is no longer needed. With modern technology such as scanning, emailing and even Skype or Facetime video calls there is no need to use your local solicitor. Your conveyancer can be based anywhere and still provide a great service - even if he or she is in an office many miles away from Wakefield or perhaps not even in West Yorkshire.

We have successfully dealt with thousands of conveyancing transactions all over the country, even with clients from the other side of the world. It is not unknown for us to talk to clients outside the UK using Skype, and once we had clients in Thailand talking to us through an interpreter in New Zealand!

There will be no need for you to visit our offices or hand deliver documents. You need never leave Wakefield - our conveyancers will talk you through the process via phone and email, and everything works just as smoothly as it would if we were just down the road.

Online Conveyancing in Wakefield

There isn't really any such thing as online conveyancing. Clients come to us for conveyancing in Wakefield, Thornes, Belle Vue 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 Wakefield

Every local authority is different. We use an excellent, trusted national search provider, which means we can provide searches to clients in Wakefieldand 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 Wakefield. 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 Wakefield 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 Wakefield or away from Wakefield to somewhere else, our conveyancing team can help you do so with the minimum of fuss and inconvenience.

Fees for conveyancing in Wakefield

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 Wakefield.

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 Wakefield

Wakefield is a cathedral city in West Yorkshire with a population of 76,886, located just 9 miles South of Leeds and 14 miles West of Castleford. The city is conveniently located close to the intersection of two of the country’s most important motorways the M62 which runs East to West for 107 miles and the M1 which runs North to South for 193 miles. Wakefield City Centre is within 5 miles of both the M1 and M62.

At the start of the 19th century Wakefield was a wealthy market town, and its trade focused largely on wool and grain. The River Calder aided this industry massively, as wool spinning mills could be powered by steam. The economy declined in the late 20th century as the UK textile industry declined, however, between 1998 and 2003 employment grew by around 12%. According to the 2001 census, 20.74% of the working population worked in wholesale and retail trade, 14.42% worked in the manufacturing industry and 11% worked in the health and social work sector.

Wakefield also contains an array of remarkable architecture. The most prominent of this architecture is Wakefield Cathedral which is Grade I listed. The Cathedral, which is over 700 years old and has a 74m spire, forms part of the archdeaconry of Pontefract. Other landmarks include the Grade II Neoclassical Crown Court building. The Court is closed but the council see this as a key building in the Wakefield Civic Quarter. They have safeguarded the structure of the building and are looking at a restoration and conversion of the historic asset which was built in 1810. The council anticipate a high-quality development which will bring new employment opportunities to the city centre.

Another listed building in the heart of the city is The Town Hall, a prestigious building with various sized rooms available for hire for weddings, ceremonies and events. The various rooms include the Lofthouse Suite (capacity of 60), the Old Court Room (capacity of 186) and the Kingswood Suite (capacity of 120).

Another Grade I listed building offering great facilities is the Queen Anne Style County Hall which is a 2 minutes walk from the Westgate railway station and just 5 minutes from the bus station. The building, which is located on the corner of Cliffe Parade and Bond Street, includes four distinctive meeting spaces for hire, including the beautiful Council Chamber which can seat up to 150 people in a theatre style seating arrangement.

The Wakefield City Council have many spaces available for hire suitable for various meetings and events and include; Pontefract Town Hall, Castleford Civic Centre, Ossett Town Hall, Cedars Business Centre, Elizabethan Gallery and Agbrigg and Belle Vue Community Centre.

There are seven ex-council estates in the Wakefield area. The largest is Lupset and the oldest is Portobello. The others are, Plumpton, Peacock, Eastmoor, Flanshaw and Kettlethorpe. Any homes which had not been taken into private ownership under tight to buy schemes were transferred to the registered social housing provider Wakefield and District Housing in 2005. Since 2005, Wakefield and District Housing have spent over £150 million on building and buying new homes and are currently building new homes under the Home and Communities Agency Affordable Housing Programme.

One of the largest regeneration projects in the area is the Trinity Walk shopping centre development which was completed in 2011. It is considered the most important city centre development of the last 25 years and is a partially enclosed shopping centre with over 50 stores and 1000 car parking spaces. Major shops include, Debenhams, Next, Argos, New Look, Pandora, H&M and Sainsbury’s. The development has helped the city become a more established and recognised retail shopping destination.

Wakefield Westgate Railway Station has, in recent years, developed as Wakefield's main station, offering services on the East Coast Main Line, going to London Kings Cross as well as more northern stations such as Edinburgh.

Leeds Bradford International airport is the nearest airport, just 19 miles away.

Wakefield Trinity RLFC (Formerly called Wakefield Trinity Wildcats), the local professional Rugby League team, have played Belle Vue Stadium since the club was formed in 1895 and currently play in the Super League along with local rivals Castleford Tigers. The club has won two premierships during their history.

Famous people who have come from the Wakefield area include former cricketer and infamous broadcaster Geoffrey Boycott, Mike Tindall (former Rugby Union player and now part of the Royal Family) and Jane Tomlinson (athlete and cancer charity fundraiser).

Just a few miles south east of Wakefield near Middlestown and Overton is the National Coal Mining Museum built at the site of Caphouse Colliery. The attraction offers a unique experience of seeing one of the last working mines in the country and is a great day out in a rural setting.

Also, on the outskirts of Wakefield, at West Bretton on the route to Huddersfield, is the Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP). The open-air gallery includes ones of the best collections of Henry Moore bronzes in Europe and occupies the parkland of Bretton Hall which sits on the border between West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire. There is a collection of indoor galleries, gift shops and a fine restaurant café in an architecturally designed building. It is widely recognised as the leading international centre for modern and contemporary sculpture and celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2017.

Another significant local attraction is Nostell Priory, located at Nostell, near Crofton. It is found on the Doncaster road leaving Wakefield and dates back to 1733 when it was built on the site of a medieval priory.

A significantly more modern building, located next to the River Calder, is the Hepworth Gallery which was built in 2011 at a cost of £35m.

The gallery takes its name from artist sculptor Barbara Hepworth who was born and educated in the city and the gallery houses a significant collection of Dame Barbara Hepworth’s work as well as art from David Hockney, LS Lowry and works by Henry Moore and Jacob Epstein.

One of the oldest schools in Yorkshire, Queen Elizabeth Grammar School (QEGS), was established in 1591 by Royal Charter by Queen Elizabeth I. In 1854, it moved to its current location on Northgate. The school forms part of Wakefield Grammar School Foundation one of the Country’s leading schools for independent single-sex education day schools. The Foundation includes Wakefield Girls’ High School (WGHS) and Mulberry House Nursery. In total, there are around 2,100 pupils and 500 teaching and support staff across the five schools in the Foundation.

The school is conveniently located within 10 minutes walking distance of Wakefield Westgate train station and has school bus services connecting to Huddersfield, Pontefract, Barnsley and Leeds.

Wakefield College is located on Margaret Street in the city centre, and has its origins set as far back as being the School of Art and Craft in 1868. Today it is a major provider of Sixth Form and further education with around 3,000 full time and 10,000-part time students, across the various campuses in the city and surrounding area.