My wife and I are looking to buy a home in Kirkby In Furness and are in fact using a Kirkby In Furness conveyancing firm. Within the last couple of days our solicitor has forwarded the sale agreement to be signed with a detailed report with the expectation that exchange is imminent. Alliance & Leicester have this afternoon contacted us to advise us that they have now hit a problem as our Kirkby In Furness lawyer is not on their conveyancing panel. Is this a problem?
When purchasing a property with the benefit of a mortgage it is usual for the purchasers' lawyers 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 Kirkby In Furness lawyers, in which case your legal fees may increase, and it may delay matters as you are adding another lawyer into the mix.
My partner and I are refinancing our apartment in Kirkby In Furness with Co-operative. We have a son 19 who lives at home. Our solicitor requested us to identify anyone over the age of 17 other than ourselves who reside at the property. Our lawyer has now e-mailed a document for our son to sign, giving up any rights in the event that the apartment is forfeited by the lender. I have a couple of concerns (1) Is this form unique to the Co-operative conveyancing panel as he never had to sign this form when we remortgaged 5 years ago (2) In signing this form is our son in any way compromising his right to inherit the property?
First, rest assured that your Co-operative conveyancing panel solicitor is doing the right thing as it is established procedure for any occupier who is aged 17 or over to sign the necessary Consent Form, which is purely to state that any rights he has in the property are postponed and secondary to Co-operative. This is solely used to protect Co-operative if the property were re-possessed so that in such circumstances, your son would be legally obliged to leave. It does not impact your son’s right to inherit the apartment. Please note that if your son were to inherit and the mortgage in favour of Co-operative had not been discharged, he would be liable to take over the loan or pay it off, but other than that, there is nothing stopping him from keeping the property in accordance with your will or the rules of intestacy.
My house in Kirkby In Furness is up for sale and I have a purchaser. Does my solicitor have to be required to be on the Barclays conveyancing panel in order to deal with paying off my mortgage?
Ordinarily, even if your lawyer is not on the Barclays conveyancing panel they can still act for you on your sale. It might be that the lender will not release the original deeds (if applicable and increasingly irrelevant) until after the mortgage is paid off. You should speak to your lawyer directly before you start the process though to ensure that there is no problem as lenders are changing their specifications fairly frequently at the moment.
My colleague recommended that where I am buying in Kirkby In Furness I should ask my conveyancer to carry out a Neighbourhood, Planning and Local Amenity Search. Can you explain what the purpose of this search is?
This is a search is usually quoted for as part of the standard Kirkby In Furness conveyancing searches. It is a large document of more than thirty pages, listing and setting out important information about Kirkby In Furness around the property and the people living there. It includes an Aerial Photograph, Planning Applications, Land Use, Mobile Phone Masts, Rights of Way, the local Housing Market, Council Tax Banding, the demographics of People living in the area, the dominant type of Housing, the Average Property Price, Crime details, Kirkby In Furness Education with maps and statistics, Local Amenities and other useful information about Kirkby In Furness.
I'm converting the mortgage on my primary home to a buy to let mortgage with Bank of Ireland and intend to use the remaining equity as a deposit on a second house. The location we are interested in is Kirkby In Furness. Will your conveyancers be able to act for the two mortgage companies and tie in the transactions?
Make use of our search tool on this site to ensure that the lawyers are on the appropriate lender panels. Assuming that they are your solicitor will be able to simultaneously deal with the two deals but you should talk with you solicitor and communicate your expectations and needs.
When it comes to my conveyancing in Kirkby In Furness should I be paying VAT on the following: (1) Land reg fee on purchase (2) Pre - completion search fee (3) SDLT E submission on purchase (4) Bank TT fee
(1) Land reg fee on purchase - No (2) Pre - completion search fees -No, (such conveyancing searches are HMLR ones and means £4 and possibly £2 bankruptcy per name on your mortgage) (3) SDLT E submission on your purchase - There is no VAT on Stamp Duty. However if the firm is charging a stamp duty e-submission fee as part of their services - some Kirkby In Furness conveyancers do - that will incur VAT(4) Bank transfer fee - Yes it is for the solicitor's time in submitting the funds this way.