My wife and I are looking to purchase a flat in Benfleet and have instructed a Benfleet conveyancing firm. Within the last couple of days our lawyer has sent a preliminary report and documents to look through with the expectation that exchange is imminent. Aldermore have this evening contacted us to inform me that they have now hit a problem as our Benfleet lawyer is not on their approved list of lawyers. What do we do from here?
Where you are buying a property needing a mortgage it is usual 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 bank and see if they can apply for membership of their conveyancing panel, but if that is not viable they will instruct their own solicitors to act. You are not legally obliged to appoint a law firm on the bank's conveyancing panel and you may continue to use your own Benfleet solicitors, in which case your legal fees may increase, and it will likely delay the transaction as you have another set of people involved.
Do all mortgage companies provide you with an approved list of Benfleet conveyancing solicitors? How do you know who is on the Co-operative conveyancing panel?
Benfleet conveyancing firms themselves provide us confirmation that they are on the Co-operative conveyancing panel as opposed to being supplied with a list from Co-operative directly.
My Conveyancer in Benfleet is not on the Leeds Building Society Solicitor Panel. Can I still retain my family solicitor even though they are not on the Leeds Building Society approved list?
Your options are as follows:
- Complete the purchase with your existing Benfleet lawyers but Leeds Building Society will need to instruct a conveyancer on their list of acceptable firms. This will result in additional overall legal fees and cause delays.
- Get an alternative practitioner to to deal with the purchase, not forgetting to check they are on the Leeds Building Society panel
It has been three months following my purchase conveyancing in Benfleet completed. I have checked the Land Registry website which shows that I paid £150,000 when infact I paid £160,000. 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 do I locate a Benfleet law firm on the Barclays conveyancing panel? I am a keen cyclist and am willing to travel upto 20kilometers to meet the conveyancer.
You can use the tool on this page. Please pick a lender and your location and you will see a number of Benfleet conveyancing lawyers located nearest you. We have listed some Benfleet conveyancing firms towards the end of this page and you can ring them to check whether they are on the Barclays member panel
What type of premises does your Benfleet conveyancing quotes relate to?
Our conveyancing quotes are only applicable to standard residential property in England & Wales. Where you have any different requirements for instance industrial or agricultural property or commercial conveyancing in Benfleet please contact us to address this further .