My fiance and I are looking to acquire a house in Keswick and are in fact using a Keswick conveyancing practice. Within the last couple of days our conveyancer has sent a preliminary report and documents to look through with the expectation that exchange is imminent. Yorkshire Building Society have this evening contacted us to inform me that they have now hit a problem as our Keswick solicitor is not on their approved list of lawyers. Please explain?
If you are buying a property requiring a mortgage 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 mortgage company 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 don't have to instruct a firm on the lender’s conveyancing panel and you may continue to use your own Keswick solicitors, in which case it will likely add costs, and it will likely delay the transaction as you have another set of people involved.
Last September we completed a house move in Keswick. We have since encountered a number of problems with the house which we believe were omitted in the conveyancing searches. Do we have any recourse? What searches should? have been ordered for conveyancing in Keswick?
It is not clear from the question as to the nature of the problems and if they are unique to conveyancing in Keswick. Conveyancing searches and investigations initiated as part of the buying process are designed to help avoid problems. As part of the legal transfer of property, the vendor answers a form called a SPIF. If the information turns out to be inaccurate, you could possibly take legal action against the vendor for any losses that you have suffered. The survey should have identified any problems with the structure of the property. Assuming a detailed survey was carried out and the issues were not identified, you may have a claim against the surveyor. However, if you did not have a full survey, you may be responsible for fixing any defects that have now been noted. We would always encourage buyers to take every possible step to ensure they are completely aware of the condition of a property before purchase regardless of whether they are buying in Keswick.
Finally the sale completed on my house in Keswick last June yet the purchaser is e-mailing me to moan that his lawyer needs to hear from mine. What should my lawyer have done following completion?
Post completion of your disposal your lawyer is duty bound to deliver the transfer deeds and all additional paperwork to the buyer’s solicitors. Where relevant, your conveyancer must also confirm that the legal charge in favour of the lender has been paid off to the buyers conveyancers. There is unlikely to be post completion tasks peculiar conveyancing in Keswick.
My wife and I are downsizing from our home in Keswick and the buyers lawyers are claiming that there is a risk of it being constructed on contaminated land. Any high street Keswick conveyancer would know that there is no such problem. For the life of me I don't know why the buyers are using a national conveyancing firm as opposed to a conveyancing solicitor in Keswick. Having lived in Keswick for many years we know of no issue. Should we contact our local Authority to obtain confirmation that there is no issue.
It sounds as though you may have a conveyancing lawyer already. Are they able to advise? You must enquire of your lawyer before you do anything. It is very possible that once the local authority has been informed of a potential issue it cannot be insured against (a bit like being diagnosed with a serious illness and then taking out life insurance to cover that same ailment)
four months have gone by following my purchase conveyancing in Keswick concluded. I have checked the Land Registry website which shows that I paid £175,000 when infact I paid £180,000. Why the discrepancy?
The price paid figure is taken from the application to register the purchase. It is the figure included in the Transfer (the legal deed which transfers the residence from one person to the other) and referred to as the 'consideration' or purchase price. You can report an error in the price paid figure using the LR online form. In most cases errors result from typos so at first glance the figure. Do report it so they can double check and advise.
Should one as executor remove a departed person's name from the title deeds for a house in Keswick?
Where a Keswick property is co-owned and one of the owners passes away, their name will not immediately be removed from the title deeds. It is not necessary to remove their name as when it comes to a disposal your lawyer would simply need to supply proof why the other owner is missing from the contract, such as the probate documents.
With a view to making things simpler in the future you can arrange to have the deceased party removed from the title by submitting an application to HMLR with evidence of the death. There is no land registry fee payable.