My husband and I are planning to buy a home in East Barnet and have appointed a East Barnet conveyancing practice. Within the past 48 hours our conveyancer has sent a preliminary report and documents to look through with a view to exchanging next week. Nottingham Building Society have this evening contacted us to advise us that they have now hit a problem as our East Barnet conveyancer is not on their approved list of lawyers. What do we do from here?
When purchasing a property with mortgage finance it is normal 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 Accreditation 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 lender’s conveyancing panel and you may continue to use your own East Barnet 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 search directory identifying law firms on the Coventry BS conveyancing panel. Do companies pay you a commission if I instruct them for our conveyancing in East Barnet?
We are a listing service only for law firms wishing to communicate if they are on the Coventry BS conveyancing panel or other lender panels. We do not charge referral fees to any conveyancer that you subsequently appoint for your conveyancing in East Barnet.
I'm buying my first flat in East Barnet benefiting from help to buy. The builders would not reduce the amount so I negotiated £7000 of fixtures and fittings instead. The property agent told me not inform my lawyer about the side-deal as it would jeopardize my loan with the lender. Should I keep quiet?.
All lenders require a Disclosure of Incentives Form from the developer of any new build, converted or renovated property, It is available online from the Lenders’ Handbook page on the CML website. CML 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.
Am I better off to use a East Barnet conveyancing lawyer based in the area that I am hoping to buy? I have an old university friend who can conduct the conveyancing but his firm is located approximately 350kilometers away.
The primary upside of using a high street East Barnet conveyancing practice is that you can drop in to sign paperwork, hand in your ID and apply pressure on them if necessary. They will also have local intelligence which is a benefit. However nothing is more important than finding someone that will pull out all the stops for you. If if people you trust instructed your friend and they were happy that should outweigh using an unfamiliar East Barnet conveyancing lawyer solely due to them being local.
I have just started marketing my ground floor apartment in East Barnet. Conveyancing is yet to be initiated, however I have just received a half-yearly maintenance charge demand – should I leave it to the buyer to sort out?
It best that you clear the service charge as you normally would as all rents and maintenance payments should be apportioned on completion, so you should recover the relevant percentage by the purchaser for the period running from after the completion date to the subsequent invoice date. Most managing agents will not acknowledge the buyer until the service charges have been paid and are up to date, so it is important for both buyer and seller for the seller to show that they are up to date. This will smooth the conveyancing process.
Having spent months of negotiations we are unable to agree with our landlord on how much the lease extension should cost for our flat in East Barnet. Can we issue an application to the Residential Property Tribunal Service?
Where there is a missing landlord or if there is disagreement about the premium for a lease extension, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can apply to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) to make a decision on the price payable.
An example of a Freehold Enfranchisement decision for a East Barnet residence is 23 Beaconsfield Road in July 2013. The Tribunals decided that the amount payable was £31,203 for the freehold. This case affected 2 flats. The unexpired term was 70.31 years.
What can I do where I am unhappy with the lawyer who handled our conveyancing in East Barnet?
We live in an imperfect world, and is is a fact of life that sometimes matters do not go as planned. That being said there is recourse if you were dissatisfied with your conveyancing in East Barnet. This varies from trying to resolve matters directly with them, through to reporting a conveyancer to their governing body. If things still aren’t sorted out you may consider getting in touch with the Legal Ombudsman.