Property Practice for the SQE

Property Practice questions on SQE1 reward knowing where you are in the transaction. This free PDF follows one freehold sale and purchase from the first instructions to registration: who you can act for, title and searches, the contract and the Standard Conditions of Sale, exchange, the transfer deed, completion and what to do when it is late, and Stamp Duty Land Tax with Land Transaction Tax in Wales.

Updated October 2026 · checked against the SQE1 specification, the SRA Code of Conduct, legislation.gov.uk, GOV.UK and HM Land Registry guidance, and the Law Society’s Standard Conditions of Sale, formulae and Conveyancing Protocol on 23 October 2026. General information, not tax or legal advice.

Where Property Practice sits in SQE1

Property Law and Practice is one of the six FLK2 subjects. From January 2027 it is in the second FLK2 session, with Criminal Liability and Criminal Law and Practice, and the blueprint gives it, with Solicitors Accounts in the context of conveyancing, 14 to 20% of the paper. The specification covers the freehold and leasehold transaction, commercial leases and the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954, planning, and the taxation of property. This guide takes the freehold transaction and SDLT and LTT, the core of most questions.

The transaction at a glance

Order is the method

Most wrong options describe a real step at the wrong moment. Title and searches are checked before exchange, because afterwards the buyer is bound and cannot raise requisitions on title already shown. Risk passes at exchange, so the buyer insures from then. Legal title to registered land passes on registration, not at completion, which is why the buyer applies to register within the priority period of the official search. And SDLT runs from the effective date, usually completion, not from exchange.

Stamp Duty Land Tax and Land Transaction Tax

• England, residential: 0% to £125,000, then 2%, 5%, 10% and 12%, slice by slice.
• First-time buyers: 0% to £300,000 and 5% to £500,000; above £500,000 there is no relief at all.
• Additional dwellings: each residential rate plus 5%.
• Non-residential: 0% to £150,000, 2% to £250,000, then 5%, on a price that includes any VAT.
• Wales: Land Transaction Tax instead, with a £225,000 nil band, no first-time buyer relief and a 30-day return.

What is inside the PDF

• How Property Practice is examined, and the whole transaction on one page
• The Conveyancing Protocol and a decision tree on who you can act for
• Title and searches, with a worked example of reading the register
• The contract, the key Standard Conditions and the formulae for exchange
• The transfer deed, pre-completion searches and the completion figures, worked
• Completion, post-completion steps and the remedies for late completion
• SDLT and LTT with eight worked calculations, ten exam traps and a twelve-question self-test

For the accounting side of conveyancing, see our free guide to Solicitors Accounts for the SQE, and for every deadline across FLK1 and FLK2, Time Limits for SQE1.

Frequently asked questions