My fiance and I are looking to buy a house in Ellesmere Port and are in fact using a Ellesmere Port 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. Norwich and Peterborough Building Society have this morning contacted us to inform me that they have now hit a problem as our Ellesmere Port lawyer is not on their conveyancing panel. Please explain?
When purchasing a property with mortgage finance it is standard for the purchasers' solicitors 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 Accreditation Scheme. Your property lawyer 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 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 Ellesmere Port lawyers, in which case it will likely add costs, and it may delay matters as you are adding another lawyer into the mix.
I am the registered owner of a freehold premises in Ellesmere Port but nevertheless pay rent, why is this and what is this?
It’s unusual for properties in Ellesmere Port and has limited impact for conveyancing in Ellesmere Port 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 hundreds of years, but the Rent Charge Act 1977 barred the generation of new rentcharges from 1977 onwards.
Previous rentcharges can now be extinguished by making a lump sum payment under the Act. Any rentcharges that are still in existence after 2037 is to be extinguished.
Forgive me if this question is silly but I am unseasoned as FTB of a ground floor flat in Ellesmere Port. Do I receive the keys to the premises on completion from my lawyer? If so, I will appoint a High Street conveyancing solicitor in Ellesmere Port?
On the day of completion you do not need to attend the conveyancers office in Ellesmere Port. Conveyancing lawyers for you will transfer the purchase money to the owner’s solicitors, and shortly after the monies have arrived, you will be able to pick up the keys from the Estate Agents and move into your new home. This tends to happen early afternoon.
I happen to be the sole recipient of my late grandmother’s will with all property in now in my sole name, including the my former home in Ellesmere Port. The Ellesmere Port property was put into my name in September. I want to move. I understand that there is a Mortgage Lenders 6 month 'rule', which means that my property ownership may be regarded the same way as if I'd bought the property in September. Do I have to wait half a year to sell?
The CML handbook requires solicitors to: "report to us immediately if the owner or registered proprietor has been registered for less than six months." By the strict wording you might be impacted by that. How practical a view lenders take of it, depend on the mortgage company as this clause principally exists to identify the purchase and immediately sell or the flipping of properties.
After months of negotiation I have agreed a price on a house in Ellesmere Port. My financial adviser pressured me to appoint their property lawyer. I paid an advanced payment of £150. A few days later, the lawyer called me embarrassingly acknowledging that they were not on the UBS 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 UBS 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 used Stirling Law a few years ago for my conveyancing in Ellesmere Port. Now, I need the documents but the law firm is no longer operating. What do I do?
You should contact the Solicitors Regulatory Authority (SRA) to assist in tracing 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 Ellesmere Port of the conveyancing firm of solicitors you previously hired, the name of conveyancing solicitor with whom you had dealings, and the date on which you last had dealings with the firm.
I am looking for a leasehold apartment up to £245,000 and identified one round the corner in Ellesmere Port I like with amenity areas and station in the vicinity, however it's only got 52 years unexpired on the lease. I can't really find anything else in Ellesmere Port for this price, so just wondered if I would be making a mistake purchasing a short lease?
If you require a mortgage the shortness of the lease will likely be a potential deal breaker. Reduce the offer by the anticipated lease extension will cost if not already taken into account. If the existing proprietor has owned the premises for at least 2 years you may ask them to start the process of the extension and then assign it to you. You can add 90 years to the existing lease and have £0 ground rent by law. You should consult your conveyancing solicitor concerning this.
I have just had an offer accepted on a leasehold flat in Ellesmere Port and the mortgage adviser that we are dealing with suggested his conveyancing practitioner. He quoted £1000 including VAT and 3rd party costs. Does this sound like a good deal?
You should not rely on 1 estimate. You should seek like-for-like quotes for your conveyancing in Ellesmere Port. Then choose one that you trust and crucially, is on the approved panel of the mortgage company that you are sourcing your mortgage from.