My fiance and I are planning to acquire a home in Egremont and have appointed a Egremont conveyancing practice. Within the last couple of days our lawyer has forwarded the sale agreement to be signed with a detailed report in anticipation of exchanging contracts shortly. Coventry Building Society have this afternoon contacted us to inform me that there is now an issue as our Egremont lawyer is not on their approved list of lawyers. Is this a problem?
Where you are buying a property needing a mortgage it is usual for the purchasers' solicitors 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 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 as you are at liberty to use your preferred Egremont lawyers, in which case your legal fees may increase, and it may delay matters as you have another set of people involved.
I purchased a freehold property in Egremont yet charged rent, why is this and what is this?
It is rare for properties in Egremont and has limited impact for conveyancing in Egremont but some freehold properties in England (particularly common in North West England) pay an annual sum known as a Chief Rent or a Rentcharge to a third party who has no other legal interest in the land.
Rentcharge payments are usually between £2.00 and £5.00 per year. Rentcharges date back many centuries, but the Rent Charge Act 1977 barred the creation of fresh rentcharges from 1977 onwards.
Old rentcharges can now be redeemed by making a one off payment under the Act. Any rentcharges that are still in existence post 2037 will be extinguished.
My wife and I have a terraced Victorian property in Egremont. Conveyancing solicitor acted for me and Halifax. I happened to do a free search for it on the Land Registry database and I saw a couple of entries: the first freehold, another for leasehold under the matching property. I thought I was buying a freehold how can I check?
You should read 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 proprietor of the leasehold and freehold title as well is to check (£3). It is not completely unheard of in Egremont and other locations in the country and poses no real issues for owners other than when they mortgage 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 practitioner who conducted the work.
I am buying my first flat in Egremont benefiting from help to buy. The developers would not reduce the amount so I negotiated £7000 of fixtures and fittings instead. The sale representative advised me not reveal to my lawyer about the deal as it would impact my loan with the bank. Do I keep my lawyer in the dark?.
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 Egremont conveyancing practitioner who is local to the property I am purchasing? I have an old university friend who can handle the legal work but his firm is located 200kilometers away.
The benefit of a high street Egremont conveyancing practice is that you can visit the firm to sign documents, deliver your identification documents and pester them if necessary. They will also have local insight which is a bonus. That being said it's more important to get someone that will do a good and efficient job. If if people you trust instructed your friend and the majority were happy that must surpass using an unknown Egremont conveyancing lawyer solely due to them being Egremont based.
I work for a long established estate agent office in Egremont where we see a number of flat sales put at risk as a result of short leases. I have received inconsistent advice from local Egremont conveyancing firms. Could you confirm whether the vendor of a flat can commence the lease extension formalities for the buyer?
Provided that the seller has owned the lease for at least 2 years it is possible, to serve a Section 42 notice to commence the lease extension process and assign the benefit of the notice to the purchaser. The benefit of this is that the buyer can avoid having to sit tight for 2 years to extend their lease. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment needs to be completed prior to, or at the same time as completion of the disposal of the property.
Alternatively, it may be possible to extend the lease informally by agreement with the landlord either before or after the sale. If you are informally negotiating there are no rules and so you cannot insist on the landlord agreeing to grant an extension or transferring the benefit of an agreement to the buyer.
I own a 1 bedroom flat in Egremont, conveyancing was carried out in 2012. Can you please calculate a probable premium for a statutory lease extension? Corresponding flats in Egremont with an extended lease are worth £165,000. The average or mid-range amount of ground rent is £50 charged once a year. The lease terminates on 21st October 2103
With 78 years left to run we estimate the premium for your lease extension to be between £7,600 and £8,800 plus legals.
The suggested premium range that we have given is a general guide to costs for extending a lease, but we cannot give you the actual costs in the absence of comprehensive investigations. You should not use the figures in a Notice of Claim or as an informal offer. There may be additional issues that need to be considered and you obviously should be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. Neither should you take any other action based on this information before seeking the advice of a professional.