My fiance and I are hoping to buy a flat in Great Harwood and have instructed a Great Harwood conveyancing practice. Within the last couple of days our property lawyer has sent a preliminary report and documents to look through with a view to exchanging next week. Halifax have this afternoon contacted us to inform me that there is now an issue as our Great Harwood lawyer is not on their conveyancing panel. Is this a problem?
If you are buying a property requiring a mortgage it is standard for the purchasers' lawyers to also represent 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 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 don't have to instruct a firm on the bank's conveyancing panel as you are at liberty to use your preferred Great Harwood lawyers, in which case your legal fees may increase, and it may delay matters as you have another set of people involved.
We were just about to exchange contracts for a garden flat in Great Harwood. We have hit a stumbling block. Our mortgage offer with The Royal Bank of Scotland runs out on 6/8/2025 but the owners are suggesting a completion date of 8/8/2025. Can one extend the loan expiry date?
The person best placed to address this question is your conveyancer who is in a position to determine if they corresponding with the mortgage broker, seller’s solicitors, selling agents or indeed all three given the circumstances your house move as of today.
I just acquired a house at auction in Great Harwood. Conveyancing is required. What happens now?
Given that you are now legally bound yourself to purchase you now have to retain a conveyancing practitioner soon as you are faced with a pending deadline in which to complete the property. An auction property will have an associated legal pack. This will likely include most,if not all of the paperwork that your conveyancer requires. Where you are dealing with leasehold premises the auction pack may include a copy of the lease, management information and a sellers leasehold information form and associated conveyancing documentation pertinent to a leasehold property. You should give this to the conveyancer working for you at the earliest opportunity. You also need to ensure that that you have the requisite funding in place to complete the transaction on the set completion date.
I am the only recipient of my late grandmother’s estate and I have everything in my name alone, including the house in Great Harwood. Conveyancing formalities meant that the Land Registry date was in May. I want to move. I do know about the Mortgage Lenders 6 month 'rule', meaning my property ownership may be considered the same way as though I had purchased the property in May. Will no one buy the property for half a year?
The CML handbook obliges solicitors to: "report to us immediately if the owner or registered proprietor has been registered for less than six months." Technically you may be caught by that. How practical a view mortgage companies take of it, depend on the lender as this clause is principally there to identify the purchase and immediately sell or the quick reselling of properties.
Last month we had a mortgage agreed in principle with Skipton. Great Harwood conveyancing lawyers have been selected. What is the average time that one could expect to receive a mortgage offer from Skipton?
There is no definitive answer here. Have Skipton done the survey? Have you advised Skipton as to your lawyers' details and checked that your lawyers are on the Skipton conveyancing panel? Sometimes it can take as long as six weeks for a mortgage offer to be issued.
Me and my brother purchased a 4 bedroom Georgian house in Great Harwood. Conveyancing solicitor represented me and The Mortgage Works. I happened to do a free search for it on the Land Registry database and there are a couple of entries: the first freehold, another for leasehold with the matching address. If a house is not a freehold shouldn't I have been informed?
You need to assess 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 Great Harwood 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 mortgage companies. You can also enquire as to the position with your conveyancing practitioner who conducted the purchase.
I decided to have a survey completed on a property in Great Harwood prior to appointing solicitors. I have been advised that there is a flying freehold overhang to the house. My surveyor has said that some lenders may not grant a loan on such a property.
It varies from the lender to lender. Santander has different instructions from Nationwide. Should you wish to call us we can check with the relevant lender. If you lender is happy to lend one our lawyers can help as they are used to dealing with flying freeholds in Great Harwood. Conveyancing will be smoother if you use a solicitor in Great Harwood especially if they regularly deal with such properties in Great Harwood.
I am in need of some leasehold conveyancing in Great Harwood. Before diving in I want to be sure as to the remaining lease term.
Assuming the lease is registered - and almost all are in Great Harwood - then the leasehold title will always include the short particulars of the lease, namely the date; the term; and the original parties. From a conveyancing perspective such details then enable any prospective buyer and lender to confirm that any lease they are looking at is the one relevant to that title. For any other purpose, such as confirming how long the term was granted for and calculating what is left, then the register should be sufficient on it's own.
Leasehold Conveyancing in Great Harwood - Sample of Questions you should ask before Purchasing
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You should be aware that where the lease has fewer than 80 years it will affect the marketability of the property. It is worth checking with your bank that they are willing to go ahead with the loan given the lease term. A short lease means that you will probably need a lease extension at some point and it is worth discovering how much this will be. For most Great Harwoodlease extensions you will be be obliged to have been the owner of the property for a couple of years in order to be eligible to exercise a lease extension. What is the annual maintenance fee and ground rent? Its a good idea to find out as much as possible concerning the managing agents as they will either make life much simpler or problematic. As the owner of a leasehold property you are frequently at the mercy of the managing agents both financially and when it comes to every day matters such as the tidiness of the common parts. Don't be afraid to ask prospective neighbours whether they are happy with them. Finally, investigate as to the dates that the service charges are due to the managing agents and precisely what it includes.