My partner and I are planning to acquire a house in Bude and have appointed a Bude conveyancing firm. Within the past 48 hours our solicitor has sent a preliminary report and documents to look through with the expectation that exchange is imminent. The Royal Bank of Scotland have this evening contacted us to advise us that they have now hit a problem as our Bude solicitor is not on their approved list of lawyers. Please explain?
Where you are buying a property needing a mortgage it is standard for the purchasers' solicitors to also represent the purchaser's lender. 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 lender 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 Bude solicitors, in which case your legal fees may increase, and it will likely delay the transaction as you have another set of people involved.
We see that you have a post code search directory listing firms on the HSBC conveyancing panel. Do firms pay you a commission if I retain them for our own conveyancing in Bude?
We are a listing service only for law firms wishing to communicate if they are on the HSBC conveyancing panel or other lender panels. We do not charge referral fees to any conveyancer that you subsequently appoint for your conveyancing in Bude.
I own a semi-detached Edwardian house in Bude. Conveyancing lawyer acted for me and Alliance & Leicester . I did a free Land Registry search last week and I saw two entries: the first freehold, the second leasehold under the matching address. Is it worth asking Alliance & Leicester 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 owner of the leasehold and freehold title as well is to check (£3). It is not completely unheard of in Bude and other locations in the country and poses no real issues for owners other than when they remortgage they have to account for both freehold and leasehold interests when dealing with mortgage companies. You can also enquire as to the position with your conveyancing lawyer who conducted the conveyancing.
I was advised by a number of estate agents in Bude to select a solicitor on your site. Is there a financial upside for Estate Agents to offer your services over another?
We don’t offer any referral fee for pointing buyers and sellers to this site. We thought it would be too underhand a fee because home movers will think, ‘How come the agent getting a kickback? Why am I not getting any benefit too?’ So we decided to step away from that.
We're novice buyers - agreed a price, but the agent has warned us that the owners will only proceed if we instruct their chosen conveyancers as they need an ‘expedited deal’. Our preferred option is to instruct a high street conveyancer who is accustomed to conveyancing in Bude
We suspect that the seller is not behind this demand. If they want ‘a quick sale', turning down a genuine buyer is going to damage their objectives. Try to communicate with the vendors directly and explain that (a)you are motivated buyers (b)you are ready to go, with finances arranged © you are unencumbered (d) you wish to move quickly (e)but you intend to appoint your own,trusted Bude conveyancing solicitors - not the ones that will give the negotiator at the agency a commission or achieve conveyancing figures set by head office.
I want to rent out my leasehold flat in Bude. Conveyancing solicitor who did the purchase is retired - so can't ask him. Is permission from the freeholder required?
A lease governs the relationship between the landlord and you the flat owner; specifically, it will indicate if subletting is banned, or permitted but only subject to certain caveats. The accepted inference is that if the lease contains no expres ban or restriction, subletting is permitted. The majority of leases in Bude do not contain strict prohibition on subletting – such a clause would adversely affect the market value the flat. Instead, there is usually a basic requirement that the owner notifies the freeholder, possibly supplying a copy of the sublease.
Bude Conveyancing for Leasehold Flats - Sample of Questions you should ask before buying
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How many of the leaseholders are in arrears for their maintenance charge payments? The prefered form of lease arrangement is where the freehold title is owned by the leaseholders. In this scenario the leaseholders have being in charge if their destiny and even though a managing agent is frequently employed if the building is bigger than a house conversion, the managing agent retained by the leaseholders. Does this lease have more than 85 years left?