My husband and I are refinancing our maisonette in East Bergholt with Clydesdale. We have a son 19 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, waiving any legal rights in the event that the property is repossessed. I have two concerns (1) Is this form unique to the Clydesdale conveyancing panel as he did not need to sign this form when we remortgaged 5 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 Clydesdale. This is solely used to protect Clydesdale 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 Clydesdale 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.
We are purchasing a house in East Bergholt. It might be a silly question but how we can trust a conveyancer? On completion day we will need to put money into their account. What is the protection we have from them run away with our deposit?
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.
Is it the case that all East Bergholt CQS (Conveyancing Quality Scheme) solicitors are on the Principality conveyancing panel?
It is true that some lenders now utilise the accreditation scheme as the starting point for Panel approval such as HSBC and Santander. The Law Society’s CQS accreditation however is no guarantee to lender panel acceptance. Nevertheless,the CML have indicated that it is likely to become a pre-requisite for solicitor practices wishing to join their approved list of conveyancing solicitors.
We had selected solicitors located in East Bergholt on the RBS solicitor approved list. They are now charging me an additional fee for handling the RBS mortgage. Is this a supplemental conveyancing fee set by RBS?
Provided it is contained in their Terms and Conditions or estimate then yes your conveyancer may levy a fee for this. This fee is not set by RBS but by your East Bergholt conveyancing practitioner. Numerous firms on the RBS panel will levy an ‘acting for lender’ fee and others do not.
A relative advised me that where I am purchasing in East Bergholt I should carry out a Neighbourhood, Planning and Local Amenity Search. Can you explain what the purpose of this search is?
A search of this type is usually included in the estimate for your East Bergholt conveyancing searches. It is not a small document of about 40 pages, listing and detailing important information about East Bergholt around the property and the people living there. It includes an Aerial Photograph, Planning Applications, Land Use, Mobile Phone Masts, Rights of Way, the local Housing Market, Council Tax Banding, the demographics of People living in the area, the dominant type of Housing, the Average Property Price, Crime statistics, Local Education with plans and statistics, Local Amenities and other useful information about East Bergholt.
How does conveyancing in East Bergholt differ for new build properties?
Most buyers of new build residence in East Bergholt come to us having been asked by the builder to exchange contracts and commit to the purchase even before the property is finished. This is because new home sellers in East Bergholt typically acquire the site, plan the estate and want to get the plots sold off as they are building the properties. Buyers, therefore, will have to exchange contracts without actually seeing the house they are buying. To reduce the chances of losing the property, buyers should instruct property lawyers as soon as the property is reserved and mortgage applications should be submitted quickly. Due to the fact that it could be several months and even years between exchange of contracts and completion, the mortgage offer may need to be extended. It would be wise to use a lawyer who specialises in new build conveyancing especially if they are accustomed to new build conveyancing in East Bergholt or who has acted in the same development.
Over the last few months I have been searching for a flat up to £305k and found one near me in East Bergholt I like with open areas and railway links nearby, the downside is that it's only got 51 remaining years left on the lease. There is not much else in East Bergholt suitable, so just wondered if I would be making a mistake buying a short lease?
If you need a mortgage the remaining unexpired lease term will likely be a potential deal breaker. Reduce the price by the expected lease extension will cost if not already taken into account. If the existing proprietor has owned the premises for at least twenty four months you can request that they commence the lease extension formalities and pass it to you. An additional ninety years can be extended on to the existing lease term with a zero ground rent applied. You should speak to your conveyancing lawyer concerning this matter.
I own a leasehold flat in East Bergholt. Conveyancing was finalised in five years ago. I have heard that I mustn’t let the lease length get too short. Is this right?
East Bergholt domestic long term leases are for a set period - normally just under one hundred years when they commenced. However many flats in East Bergholt were built or converted 20 or more years ago and so such leases now have less than eighty years unexpired. This may sound like plenty of time however Banks, Building Societies and other mortgage lenders tend to require leases to have a minimum of seventy five years remaining to be mortgageable. Accordingly when you come to sell the property you will need to extend the term of your lease if you are getting close to seventy five years. To optimize your property value you should be considering whether or not to extend your lease long before you come to sell it. Furthermore advantages to doing so before the lease hits eighty years as when the lease is below 80 years the amount to be paid to extend starts to get a lot more expensive.