My husband and I are planning to acquire a flat in Crick and have appointed a Crick conveyancing firm. Within the past 48 hours our property lawyer has forwarded the sale agreement to be signed with a detailed report in anticipation of exchanging contracts shortly. Alliance & Leicester have this morning contacted us to inform me that there is now an issue as our Crick lawyer is not on their approved list of lawyers. Please explain?
If you are buying a property needing a mortgage it is conventional for the purchasers' lawyers to also act for 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 property lawyer 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 don't have to instruct a firm on the lender’s conveyancing panel and you may continue to use your own Crick solicitors, in which case it will likely add costs, and it may delay matters as you are adding another lawyer into the mix.
My fiance and I changing mortgage lender for our flat in Crick with Nationwide. We have a son 18 who lives at home. Our solicitor requested us to identify anyone over the age of 17 other than ourselves who lives in the flat. Our lawyer has now e-mailed a document for our son to sign, giving up any rights in the event that the flat is forfeited by the lender. I have two questions (1) Is this form unique to the Nationwide conveyancing panel as he did not need to sign this form when we bought 3 years ago (2) In signing this form is our son in any way compromising his right to inherit the property?
On the face of it your lawyer has done nothing wrong as it is established procedure for any occupier who is aged 17 or over to sign the necessary Consent Form, which is purely to state that any rights he has in the property are postponed and secondary to Nationwide. This is solely used to protect Nationwide if the property were re-possessed so that in such circumstances, your son would be legally obliged to leave. It does not impact your son’s right to inherit the apartment. Please note that if your son were to inherit and the mortgage in favour of Nationwide had not been discharged, he would be liable to take over the loan or pay it off, but other than that, there is nothing stopping him from keeping the property in accordance with your will or the rules of intestacy.
I had a mortgage agreed in principle with UBS. Crick conveyancing lawyers were appointed. How long does it take for UBS to issue the offer to the lawyer?
Some lenders take longer than others. Have UBS done the valuation? Have you informed UBS as to your lawyers' details and checked that your lawyers are on the UBS conveyancing panel? It is not unusual for a mortgage offer to take a month to come through.
After weeks of negotiation I have agreed a price on an apartment in Crick. My mortgage broker suggested a lawyer. I paid an advanced payment of £175. A couple of days later, the conveyancer called me sheepishly admitting that they were not on the Aldermore 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 Aldermore 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'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 Crick solicitor - who is on the Coventry BS conveyancing panel - on this she said they don't do this and I need to contract an independent surveyor. Is that normal?
Coventry BS will need an independent valuation of the property. Your lawyer will not arrange this. Usually Coventry BS 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. You may wish to consider appointing your own Crick surveyor to carry out a survey or prepare a home buyers report on the property. It is up to you to satisfy yourself that the property is structurally sound before you buy it. If the survey or report reveals that building work is needed, you should tell your solicitor. You may wish to renegotiate with the seller.
I am planning on selling our home in Crick and the buyers lawyers are claiming that there is a possibility that the property was built land that was not decontaminated. A high street Crick lawyer would know that there is no such problem. It does beg the question why the buyers used an internet conveyancing firm rather than a conveyancing solicitor in Crick. Having lived in Crick for 4 years we know that this is a non issue. Do we contact our local Authority to get confirmation that there is no issue.
It would appear that you have a conveyancing lawyer already. What do they say? You need to 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)
Despite weeks of looking the Title Certificate and documents to my house can not be found. The conveyancers who did the conveyancing in Crick 10 years ago are no longer around. What do I do?
Gone are the days when you need to have the physical original deeds to prove you are the owner of your registered land or premises, as the Land Registry have everything they need in a digital format.
Over the last few months I have been searching for a flat up to £245,000 and identified one near me in Crick I like with amenity areas and transport links in the vicinity, the downside is that it only has 51 remaining years left on the lease. There is not much else in Crick for this price, so just wondered if I would be making a grave error buying a short lease?
If you require a mortgage that many years will likely be a potential deal breaker. Discount the price by the expected lease extension will cost if it has not already been discounted. If the current owner has owned the premises for a minimum of twenty four months you can request that they commence the lease extension formalities and then assign it to you. You can add 90 years to the existing lease term and have £0 ground rent by law. You should speak to your conveyancing lawyer about this matter.