Licensed Conveyancer study guide
Licensed Conveyancer · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The Licensed Conveyancer qualification is awarded and regulated by the Council for Licensed Conveyancers (CLC), which describes itself as the specialist property law regulator. The CLC qualification provides access to a career in property conveyancing as a licensed conveyancer, and the CLC notes that an increasing number of employers recognise the benefits the qualification can offer their staff. It is therefore relevant both to people entering the profession and to existing staff whose firms want them to qualify. The CLC's published routes to qualify include its diplomas, apprenticeships in England and apprenticeships in Wales, and it lists a range of exemptions, including a law graduate fast track, graduate conversion, overseas graduate, CILEX transfer, professional experience and advanced probate exemptions, alongside a first qualifying licence route and a route for solicitors and CRL lawyers. Topics on this exam: Conveyancing and Probate. The Licensed Conveyancer study guide has 2 sections and about 716 words.
01Conveyancing: Core Concepts, Traps and a Worked Example
Conveyancing is the legal transfer of an interest in land, and the exam tests whether you can sequence a transaction and spot where it breaks. You must be fluent in the distinction between exchange of contracts and completion: exchange creates a binding contract, fixes the completion date, and generally makes the buyer responsible for risk, while completion transfers the legal estate. Understand the difference between a contract for the sale of an unregistered title and a registered one, and know that title is investigated before exchange but that requisitions and searches must be raised in the right order. Learn the purpose of the standard pre-contract searches (local authority, drainage, environmental, chancel repair where relevant) and the rule that the buyer bears the risk of matters a proper search would reveal.
361 words, about 2 min02Probate: Grants, Administration and Common Traps
Probate questions test the machinery of administering a deceased person's estate. You must know when a grant of probate (with a will) or letters of administration (intestacy or no valid executor) is needed, who has priority to apply, and the difference between a grant of representation and the office of personal representative. Understand the executor's chain of title: an executor derives title from the will, while an administrator derives title from the grant. Learn the order of application in intestacy under the Administration of Estates Act 1925 as amended, and the statutory legacy rules.
355 words, about 2 min