My fiance and I are planning to purchase a property in Eltham and have instructed a Eltham conveyancing practice. Within the past 48 hours our lawyer has sent a preliminary report and documents to look through with a view to exchanging next week. TSB have this afternoon contacted us to advise us that they have now hit a problem as our Eltham lawyer is not on their conveyancing panel. What do we do from here?
When purchasing a property with the benefit of a mortgage it is conventional for the purchasers' lawyers 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 and you may continue to use your own Eltham solicitors, in which case it will likely add costs, and it may delay matters as you have another set of people involved.
What is the first thing I need to know about purchase conveyancing in Eltham?
You may not hear this from too many lawyers but conveyancing in Eltham or throughout South East London is often a confrontational process. In other words, when it comes to conveyancing there is plenty of opportunity for conflict between you and others involved in the legal transfer of property. E.g., the vendor, estate agent and even potentially the mortgage company. Choosing a solicitor for your conveyancing in Eltham is a critical decision as your conveyancer is your adviser, and is the SOLE party in the legal process whose interest is to look after your legal interests and to protect you.
There is a distinct ongoing adversarial element to conveyancing- someone must be at fault for the process being so protracted. You should always trust your lawyer ahead of all other players in the conveyancing process.
I own a renovated Georgian house in Eltham. Conveyancing practitioner represented me and Nationwide Building Society. I happened to do a free search for it on the Land Registry database and I saw a couple of entries: one for freehold, the second leasehold with the matching property. Is it worth asking Nationwide Building Society to clarify?
You should assess the Freehold register you have again and check the Charges Register as there may be 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 Eltham and other areas of the country and poses no real issues for owners other than when they remortgage they have to account for both freehold and leasehold interests when dealing with lenders. You can also question the position with the conveyancing lawyer who conducted the purchase.
I am looking into buying my first house which is in Eltham and I am already nervous. I couldn't find anything specific about Eltham. Conveyancing will be needed in due course but do you know about the Eltham area? or perhaps some other tips you can share?
Rather than looking online forget looking online you should go and have a look at Eltham. In the meantime here are some basic statistics that we found
I only have 68 years left on my flat in Eltham. I need to get lease extension but my landlord is absent. What are my options?
If you qualify, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can submit an application to the County Court for an order to dispense with the service of the initial notice. This will mean that your lease can be granted an extra 90 years by the magistrate. However, you will be required to demonstrate that you or your lawyers have used your best endeavours to track down the freeholder. In some cases an enquiry agent may be useful to conduct investigations and to produce a report which can be accepted by the court as evidence that the freeholder is indeed missing. It is wise to seek advice from a conveyancer both on investigating the landlord’s absence and the vesting order request to the County Court overseeing Eltham.
Having spent years of negotiations we cannot agree with our landlord on how much the lease extension should cost for our flat in Eltham. Can we issue an application to the Residential Property Tribunal Service?
Most definitely. We can put you in touch with a Eltham conveyancing firm who can help.
An example of a Lease Extension matter before the tribunal for a Eltham property is 103a Footscray Road in January 2014. The tribunal determines that the premium payable for the extended lease should be £34,500 according to the expert witness valuation calculation This case affected 1 flat.
Are Eltham conveyancing solicitors duty bound by the Law Society to supply transparent conveyancing costs?
Inbuilt into the Solicitors Code of Conduct are set rules and regulations as to how the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) allow solicitors to publicise their fees to clients.The Law Society have practice note giving advice on how to publicise transparent charges to avoid breaching any such rule. Practice notes are not legal advice issued by the Law Society and is not intended as the only standard of good practice a conveyancing solicitor should adhere to. The Practice Note does, however, represent the Law Society’s perspective of acceptable practice for publicising conveyancing charges, and accordingly it’s a recommended read for any solicitor or conveyancer in Eltham or further afield.