We are selling our home in Brockley. Does the conveyancer have to be on the Leeds Building Society conveyancing panel in order to deal with redeeming my mortgage?
Ordinarily, even if your lawyer is not on the Leeds Building Society conveyancing panel they can still act for you on your sale. It might be that the lender will not release the original deeds (if applicable and increasingly irrelevant) until after the mortgage is paid off. You should speak to your lawyer directly before you start the process though to ensure that there is no problem as lenders are changing their specifications fairly frequently currently.
Me and my partner are buying a house in Brockley. It might be a silly question but how we can trust a lawyer? On completion day we have to put our life savings into their account. What protection do we have from them run away with our money?
Be assured that all money in a Solicitors client account is 100% safe, and even if your Solicitor ran off with it, the Law Society would reimburse you fully.
We had chosen solicitors locally in Brockley on the HSBC solicitor panel. They have just invoiced me an additional amount for the legal aspects of the HSBC mortgage. Is this an additional conveyancing fee specified by HSBC?
Unfortunately, as long as it is in their Terms and Conditions or estimate then yes your property lawyer is entitled to charge a fee for this. This charge is not set by HSBC but by your Brockley conveyancer. Numerous firms on the HSBC panel will charge ’dealing with mortgage’ fee and others do not.
I am currently in the process of buying my council flat in Brockley. I have a mortgage offer with Kent Reliance. Conveyancing is new to me. Can I proceed without a solicitor easily? I think we can but we keep being told I should have one. Any advice?
It is not advisable to proceed with a house purchase without a solicitor. The council's solicitor are not acting for you. You need a solicitor for a number reasons. One of which is to verify what plans the Council have for repairs and refurbishment for the next five years. Many leaseholders have been stung for contributions of thousands of pounds. In any event, if you are getting a mortgage with Kent Reliance, you will need to appoint a solicitor on the Kent Reliance conveyancing panel.
My partner and I are selling our home in Brockley and according to the buyers it appears that there is a risk of it being constructed on contaminated land. Any local conveyancer would know that there is no such problem. For the life of me I don't know why the purchasers used a web based conveyancing outfit rather than a conveyancing solicitor in Brockley. Having lived in Brockley for six years we know of no issue. Do we get in touch with our local Authority to seek confirmation that there is no issue.
It sounds as though you may have a conveyancing solicitor currently acting for you. What do they say? You must check with your lawyer before you do anything. It is very possible that once the local authority has been informed of a potential issue it cannot be insured against (a bit like being diagnosed with a serious illness and then taking out health insurance to cover that same illness)
Me and my brother have a renovated Victorian property in Brockley. Conveyancing practitioner acted for me and Santander. I happened to do a free search for it on the Land Registry database and there are two entries: the first freehold, another for leasehold with the exact same property. Is it worth asking Santander to clarify?
You need to assess the Freehold register you have again and check the Charges Register for mention of a lease. The best way to be sure that you are also the registered proprietor of the leasehold and freehold title as well is to check (£3). It is not completely unheard of in Brockley and other areas of the country and poses no real issues for owners other than when they sell they have to account for both freehold and leasehold interests when dealing with lenders. You can also question the position with your conveyancing solicitor who conducted the conveyancing.
I'm buying my first flat in Brockley with a loan from Barnsley Building Society. The sellers would not move on the amount so I negotiated five thousand pounds worth of extras instead. The sale representative advised me not inform my lawyer about the deal as it may impact my loan with Barnsley Building Society. Do I keep my lawyer in the dark?.
All lenders require a Disclosure of Incentives Form from the builder of any new build, converted or renovated property, It is available online from the Lenders’ Handbook page on the UK Finance website. UK Finance form is completed and handed to the lender's surveyor when the inspection is done.
Lenders have different policies on incentives. Some accept none at all, cash or physical, while others will accept cash incentives up to 5%.
Hard to understand why the representative of a builder would be suggesting you withold information from a solicitor when all this will be clearly visible on forms the builder has to supply to its solicitor, the buyer's solicitor and the surveyor.
New build sellers have recommended to me a property lawyer and I've obtained an estimate from them. It's almost two hundred pounds cheaper than my local Brockley conveyancing practitioner. What's the catch?
Builders frequently have lists of solicitors who expedite matters and who know the developer’s documentation and solicitor. Plenty of developers offer an incentive to select their approved property lawyer for this reason, any increased fees can be avoided and a developer won't recommend a conveyancing warehouse and run the risk of having the transaction stall when they need an exchange inside a month. The argument for not agreeing to use the suggested property lawyer is that they may prove reluctant to 'push' your interests for fear of upsetting the developer. If you worry that this may be the case you should keep with your high street Brockley lawyer.