Me and my partner are purchasing a leasehold flat in Long Eaton. My property lawyer is not listed on the lender conveyancing panel. Am I still permitted to use my Long Eaton conveyancing solicitor notwithstanding that they are excluded from the mortgage company panel?
You have a number of alternatives available to you here
- Carry on with your existing Long Eaton lawyer but your mortgage company will no doubt use a lawyer on their conveyancing panel. This will result in additional cost together with probable interruption.
- Get a fresh conveyancer to act in the purchase, making sure they are on the bank conveyancing panel.
- Convince your conveyancer to pull out all the stops to get listed on the mortgage company conveyancing panel
Will conveyancers request money on account for my conveyancing in Long Eaton?
Where you are retaining lawyers for conveyancing in Long Eaton your solicitor will request that you put them with funds to cover the search fees. This will be the total of the cost of the Local Authority Search. If any down payment is as part of the sale price then this will be needed shortly prior to contracts are exchanged. Any further balance that is needed should be sent to your lawyer a few days ahead of the day of completion.
My friend suggested that if I am purchasing in Long Eaton I should carry out a Neighbourhood, Planning and Local Amenity Search. Can you explain what the purpose of this search is?
This is a search is occasionally quoted for as part of the standard Long Eaton conveyancing searches. It is a large document of about 40 pages, listing and detailing important information about Long Eaton around the property and the people living there. It includes an Aerial Photograph, Planning Applications, Land Use, Mobile Phone Masts, Rights of Way, the Long Eaton Housing Market, Council Tax Banding, the demographics of People living in the area, the dominant type of Housing, the Average House Prices, Crime statistics, Local Education with plans and statistics, Local Amenities and other useful data about Long Eaton.
My husband and I are first time buyers - agreed a price, yet the agent told us that the vendor will only go ahead if we instruct their preferred conveyancers as they want a ‘quick sale’. My instinct tells me that we should use a high street conveyancer used to conveyancing in Long Eaton
We suspect that the seller is unaware of this demand. If they want ‘a quick sale', taking such a hostile approach to a genuine purchaser is not the way to achieve this. Try to communicate with the owners directly and explain that (a)you are keen to buy (b)you are excited to move forward, with mortgage lined up © you are unencumbered (d) you intend to proceed fast (e)but you will continue to use your preferred Long Eaton conveyancing firm - rather thanthose that will give their estate agent a introducer fee or achieve conveyancing thresholds set by HQ.
What advice can you give us when it comes to choosing a Long Eaton conveyancing practice to deal with our lease extension?
If you are instructing a solicitor for lease extension works (regardless if they are a Long Eaton conveyancing firm) it is most important that they be familiar with the legislation and specialises in this area of conveyancing. We advise that you talk with several firms including non Long Eaton conveyancing practices before you instructing a firm. If the firm is ALEP accredited then so much the better. The following questions could be useful:
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If the firm is not ALEP accredited then why not? How experienced is the firm with lease extension legislation?
Leasehold Conveyancing in Long Eaton - Sample of Questions you should consider before Purchasing
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It would be prudent to find out if there is anything that is prohibited in the lease. For instance it is very common in Long Eaton leases that pets are not allowed in certain buildings in Long Eaton. If you love the flatin Long Eaton yet your dog can’t live with you then you will be faced hard determination. The majority of Long Eaton leasehold properties will have a service bill for maintenance of the block invoiced by the landlord. If you buy the apartment you will have to pay this liability, normally in instalments accross the year. This could be anything from two or three hundred pounds to thousands of pounds for blocks with lifts and large communal grounds. There will also be a ground rent for you to pay annual, normally this is not a large sum, say about £50-£100 but you should to enquire it because occasionally it can be many hundreds of pounds. How much is the ground rent and service charge?
I have been advised by various family members to expect six to eight weeks for Long Eaton conveyancing to complete.This was 3 ago. The paperwork was only sent to my conveyancer yesterday so now does it countdown?
You should be pragmatic concerning timelines. Property transactions in Long Eaton takes on average about two months. This time period is not due to conveyancing practitioner being slow and deliberately delay matters. The amount of money involved in buying any property is so high, the purchaser's conveyancer needing to carry out a whole range of queries, searches and supplemental checks to protect the buyer and their lender (if there is to be a mortgage) from expensive, avoidable problems. These checks involves getting information from an array of third parties, for example other property lawyer, local councils, private companies, lenders. Some of these are well organised. Plenty are not. And remember, no matter how quickly your solicitor do their job, if the people you are purchasing from or are selling to aren't ready, nothing can move forward until they are.