My partner and I are planning to acquire a house in Custom House and have instructed a Custom House conveyancing firm. Within the past 48 hours our solicitor has forwarded the sale agreement to be signed with a detailed report with a view to exchanging next week. Virgin Money have this evening contacted us to advise us that there is now an issue as our Custom House lawyer is not on their approved list of lawyers. Is this a problem?
Where you are buying a property needing a mortgage it is conventional for the purchasers' lawyers 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 Quality Scheme. Your property lawyer 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 as you are at liberty to use your preferred Custom House lawyers, in which case it will likely add costs, and it will likely delay the transaction as you have another set of people involved.
I know that there are debates on Chancel Insurance on online forums. Do I require chancel insurance when purchasing a property in Custom House? or Apparently there is historic law that could mean that owners of property living in a parish church boundary may be liable to contribute towards repairs to the chancel in proximity to the church. Is this relevant for conveyancing in Custom House?
Unless a previous acquisition of the premises took place after 12 October 2013 you can take it that conveyancing practitioners handling conveyancing in Custom House to continue to advocate a chancel search and or chancel repair liability insurance.
I used Arc property Solicitors a few years ago for my conveyancing in Custom House. Now, I need my documents but cannot find the solicitor. What do I do?
Do call the Solicitors Regulatory Authority (SRA) to help locate your conveyancing files. They can be contacted on please contact on 0870 606 2555. Alternatively, you should use their online form to make an enquiry. You will need to provide the SRA with as much information as possible to assist their search, including the name and address in Custom House of the conveyancing firm of solicitors you previously retained, the name of conveyancing solicitor with whom you had dealings, and the date on which you last had dealings with the firm.
Just had an offer accepted on a new build apartment in Custom House. Conveyancing is daunting at the best of times but I have never purchased a new build flat before. Can you give me some examples of some of the questions asked in new build legal work.
Here is a sample of a selection of leasehold new build enquiries that you can expect your new-build leasehold conveyancing in Custom House
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Will the freehold then be transferred for a nominal consideration (not exceeding £100) to the Management Company? Has the Lease plan been approved by the Land Registry and if not when will they be lodged for this purpose? If there are lifts in the building, please confirm that the owners of flats on the ground and basement floors will not be required to contribute towards the cost of maintenance and renewal. Please provide evidence that the form of Lease proposed has been approved by the Land Registry. Please supply a car parking plan.
Should I appoint a Custom House conveyancing practitioner in close proximity to the house I am buying? We have a good friend who can carry out the conveyancing but they are based 200kilometers away.
The primary upside of using a high street Custom House conveyancing firm is that you can pop in to sign documents, deliver your ID and pester them if necessary. They will also have local insight which is a bonus. However nothing is more important than finding someone that will pull out all the stops for you. If you know people who instructed your friend and on the whole were impressed that must trump using an unknown Custom House conveyancing lawyer just because they are Custom House based.
My folks are unable to locate their Custom House property on the HMLR website. They recall that sixty years ago when they acquired the bungalow there were complications concerning Custom House not being recognised in some systems.
The vast majority of premises in Custom House should appear. Have you tried a search with just the postcode. Usually it will identify all the residences inside that postcode. Where recorded it will show up with a title number. Where they bought back in the 70’s it's conceivable it may be unrecorded. The property might still be revealed but with the title number shown 'na'. In this scenario you will need to find the original title deeds which could be with your parent’s mortgage company.