My husband and I are hoping to buy a home in Abridge and have appointed a Abridge conveyancing firm. Within the past 48 hours our property lawyer has sent a preliminary report and documents to look through in anticipation of exchanging contracts shortly. Accord Mortgages Ltd have this evening contacted us to inform me that they have now hit a problem as our Abridge solicitor is not on their conveyancing panel. What do we do from here?
When purchasing a property with mortgage finance it is standard for the purchasers' solicitors to also act for the mortgage company. In order to act for a bank or building society a law firm has to be on that lender's conveyancing panel. An application has to be made by the law firm to the lender to become a member of the lender's panel and there are increasingly strict criteria which the firm has to satisfy and indeed some lenders now require their panel members to be part of the Law Society’s Conveyancing Quality Scheme. Your solicitor should contact your mortgage company and see if they can apply for membership of their conveyancing panel, but if that is not viable they will instruct their own lawyers to represent them. You are not legally obliged to appoint a law firm on the bank's conveyancing panel as you are at liberty to use your preferred Abridge lawyers, in which case your legal fees may increase, and it will likely delay the transaction as you are adding another lawyer into the mix.
My colleague recommended that if I am buying in Abridge I should ask my conveyancer to execute a Neighbourhood, Planning and Local Amenity Search. What does it cover?
This is a search is sometimes quoted for as part of the standard Abridge conveyancing searches. It is not a small report of about 40 pages, listing and setting out significant information about Abridge around the property and the people living there. It incorporates an Aerial Photograph, Planning Applications, Land Use, Mobile Phone Masts, Rights of Way, the Abridge Housing Market, Council Tax Banding, the type of People living in the area, the dominant type of Housing, the Average Property Price, Crime statistics, Abridge Education with plans and statistics, Local Amenities and other useful information about Abridge.
It has been 3 months since my purchase conveyancing in Abridge completed. I have checked the Land Registry site which shows that I paid £150,000 when infact I paid £215,000. Why the discrepancy?
The price paid figure is taken from the application to register the purchase. It is the figure included in the Transfer (the legal deed which transfers the property from one person to the other) and referred to as the 'consideration' or purchase price. You can report an error in the price paid figure using the LR online form. In most cases errors result from typos so at first glance the figure. Do report it so they can double check and advise.
How does conveyancing in Abridge differ for newly converted properties?
Most buyers of new build or newly converted property in Abridge contact us having been asked by the housebuilder to sign contracts and commit to the purchase even before the house is finished. This is because house builders in Abridge tend to buy the land, plan the estate and want to get the plots sold off as they are building the properties. Buyers, therefore, will have to exchange contracts without actually seeing the house they are buying. To reduce the chances of losing the property, buyers should instruct conveyancers as soon as the property is reserved and mortgage applications should be submitted quickly. Due to the fact that it could be several months and even years between exchange of contracts and completion, the mortgage offer may need to be extended. It would be wise to use a lawyer who specialises in new build conveyancing especially if they are accustomed to new build conveyancing in Abridge or who has acted in the same development.
I decided to have a survey completed on a property in Abridge before retaining solicitors. I have been advised that there is a flying freehold overhang to the house. Our surveyor has said that some banks tend not issue a loan on this type of property.
It depends who your proposed lender is. HSBC has different requirements from Nationwide. Should you wish to telephone us we can check with the appropriate mortgage company. If you lender is happy to lend one our lawyers can help as they are used to dealing with flying freeholds in Abridge. Conveyancing can be more complicated and therefore you should check with your conveyancing solicitor in Abridge to see if the conveyancing will be more expensive.
Why can I not complete my conveyancing in Abridge on Good Friday?
This is due to the fact that on completion the money will pass between the banks of the purchaser and seller's conveyancer and currently this can only happen on a business day. So you can't complete on a saturday or sunday either.