My fiance and I are planning to buy a home in Amersham and have instructed a Amersham conveyancing firm. Within the past 48 hours our property lawyer has forwarded the sale agreement to be signed with a detailed report with a view to exchanging next week. Godiva Mortgages Ltd have this afternoon contacted us to advise us that they have now hit a problem as our Amersham lawyer is not on their approved list of lawyers. Is this a problem?
Where you are buying a property requiring a mortgage it is standard for the purchasers' solicitors to also represent 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 Accreditation Scheme. Your solicitor should contact your bank 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 and you may continue to use your own Amersham solicitors, in which case your legal fees may increase, and it will likely delay the transaction as you are adding another lawyer into the mix.
Do banks and building societies provide you with an approved list of Amersham conveyancing solicitors? How do you know who is on the Yorkshire BS conveyancing panel?
Amersham conveyancing firms themselves provide us confirmation that they are on the Yorkshire BS conveyancing panel as opposed to being supplied with a list from Yorkshire BS directly.
I recently had an offer agreed on a house in Amersham. My mortgage broker suggested a solicitor. I paid an on account payment of £200. Soon after, the conveyancer contacted me embarrassingly acknowledging that they were not on the Principality conveyancing panel. Am I right in thinking that I should be due a refund?
You should be able to recover this from the law firm if they were not on the Principality panel. They should have asked at the outset which lender you were obtaining a mortgage with. An important lesson to readers of this site is to check that the lawyers are on the appropriate lender panel.
I am selling my house. I had a double glazing fitted in May 2006, but did not receive a FENSA certificate or Building Regulation Certificate. My purchaser’s lender, Principality are being a right pain. The Amersham solicitor who is on the Principality conveyancing panel is happy to accept ‘lack of building regulation’ insurance but Principality are insisting on a building regulation certificate. Why do Principality have a conveyancing panel if they don't accept advice from them?
It is probably the case that Principality have referred the matter to their valuer. The reason why Principality may not want to accept indemnity insurance is because it does not give them any reassurance that the double glazing was correctly and safely installed. The indemnity insurance merely protects against enforcement action which is very unlikely anyway.
I've digested plenty of house buying guides, I note that they all recommend that you should get your house surveyed prior to buying it. When I asked my local Amersham solicitor - who is on the Principality conveyancing panel - on this she said they don't do this and I need to contract an independent surveyor. is that correct?
Principality will need an independent valuation of the property. Your lawyer will not arrange this. Usually Principality will appoint their own surveyor to do this, and you will have to pay for it. Remember that this is a valuation for mortgage purposes and not a survey. Your conveyancer will not organise the survey but they may be able to put you in touch with a local one that they recommend. RICS offers a find a surveyor service (just google it) where you can search for a qualified surveyor by your Amersham postcode. As you are getting a mortgage with Principality, you could contact them to see if they have a list of approved surveyors in Amersham.
The deeds to our home can not be found. The conveyancers who did the conveyancing in Amersham 4 years ago have long since closed. Will I be able to sell the house?
Gone are the days when you need to have the physical official documentation to evidence that you own the land or premises, given that the Land Registry have everything they need in a digital format.
I am on look out for some leasehold conveyancing in Amersham. Before I get started I would like to find out the unexpired term of the lease.
If the lease is registered - and 99.9% are in Amersham - then the leasehold title will always include the short particulars of the lease, namely the date; the term; and the original parties. From a conveyancing perspective such details then enable any prospective buyer and lender to confirm that any lease they are looking at is the one relevant to that title. For any other purpose, such as confirming how long the term was granted for and calculating what is left, then the register should be sufficient on it's own.
I inherited a garden flat in Amersham, conveyancing having been completed 3 years ago. Can you let me have an estimate of the premium that my landlord can legally expect in return for granting a renewal of my lease? Equivalent properties in Amersham with an extended lease are worth £190,000. The ground rent is £45 invoiced every year. The lease finishes on 21st October 2087
You have 62 years left to run the likely cost is going to be between £17,100 and £19,800 plus costs.
The suggested premium range that we have given is a general guide to costs for renewing a lease, but we cannot give you a more accurate figure in the absence of detailed investigations. You should not use this information in tribunal or court proceedings. There may be other concerns that need to be considered and you obviously should be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. Please do not move forward based on this information before getting professional advice.
To what extent are Amersham conveyancing solicitors duty bound by the Law Society to supply clear conveyancing costs?
Inbuilt into the Solicitors Code of Conduct are specific rules and regulations as to how the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) allow solicitors to publicise their fees to clients.The Law Society have practice note giving advice on how to publicise transparent charges to avoid breaching any such rule. Practice notes are not legal advice issued by the Law Society and is not intended as the only standard of good practice a conveyancing solicitor should adhere to. The Practice Note does, nevertheless, represent the Law Society’s view of acceptable practice for publicising conveyancing charges, and accordingly it’s a recommended read for any solicitor or conveyancer in Amersham or or elsewhere in the country.