My wife and I are planning to buy a flat in Hertford and are in fact using a Hertford conveyancing practice. Within the past 48 hours our lawyer has forwarded the sale agreement to be signed with a detailed report in anticipation of exchanging contracts shortly. Birmingham Midshires have this afternoon contacted us to advise us that they have now hit a problem as our Hertford lawyer is not on their approved list of lawyers. What do we do from here?
If you are buying a property with the assistance of a mortgage it is standard for the purchasers' solicitors to also act for 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 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 Hertford lawyers, in which case it will likely add costs, and it may delay matters as you are adding another lawyer into the mix.
I have given 2 months notice to my current landlord and must be out of my let out flat in Hertford by the end of next month. Conveyancing on my purchase is progressing. Is it possible to complete in six weeks as I wish to avoid having to move into short term accommodation?
The normal practice is not to serve notice for your lease until your lawyer suggests that you should. Assuming that you have not already done so, speak to your conveyancer and ask them to they chase the sellers side, try to get a realistic time scale from them that all parties will aim to achieve
Do I have to attend the offices of the solicitor to execute the mortgage deed? If so, I will appoint a lawyer who conducts conveyancing in Hertford so that I can pop in to their offices if necessary.
Whereas this was necessary ten years ago, most mortgage companies no longer require their conveyancing panel solicitor to witness the borrowers signature. You will still be obliged to provide identification documents and there are still manifest benefits to using a local practitioner, in your case a conveyancing solicitor in Hertford.
I have been told that property searches are the main reason for stalling in Hertford house deals. Is this right?
The Council of Property Search Organisations (CoPSO) published findings of research by MoveWithUs that conveyancing searches do not figure within the most frequent causes of delays in the conveyancing process. Searches are not likely to be the root cause of slowing down conveyancing in Hertford.
I have recentlyfound out that Stirling Law have been shut down. They conducted my conveyancing in Hertford for a purchase of a leasehold apartment 10 months ago. How can I establish that the property is not still registered in the name of the former proprietor?
The easiest method to check if the property is registered to you, you can carry out a search of the land registry (£3.00). You can either do this yourself or ask a law firm to do this for you. If you are not registered you can seek help from one of a number of Hertford conveyancing specialists.
My intention is to purchase a ground floor apartment in Hertford. Conveyancing lawyer is waiting for, from the vendor, building insurance documents. Earlier today I was informed that the seller needs to send the insurance paperwork for the flat above also. Why would my conveyancer want to check the insurance for the other flat? Is it really required? We have been waiting for the last fortnight…
It is not impossible in leasehold conveyancing in Hertford to discover Conveyancing in Hertford in a minority of cases reveals that the lease provides for the tenant's to insure their individual flats as opposed to the landlord insuring the complete premises - which is clearly preferable. Do contact your solicitor but it would seem that your conveyancer is seeking to establish that the whole building is insured. Insuring your apartment is no help when it comes to rebuilding after a fire if the other flat cannot be rebuilt as a result of lack of insurance.