My partner and I are hoping to buy a home in Long Sutton and are in fact using a Long Sutton conveyancing firm. Within the past 48 hours our solicitor has forwarded the sale agreement to be signed with a detailed report with a view to exchanging next week. Nationwide Building Society have this morning contacted us to advise us that there is now an issue as our Long Sutton conveyancer is not on their conveyancing panel. Is this a problem?
Where you are buying a property needing 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 Quality Scheme. Your solicitor 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 solicitors to act. You are not legally obliged to appoint a law firm on the lender’s conveyancing panel and you may continue to use your own Long Sutton solicitors, in which case it will likely add costs, and it will likely delay the transaction as you have another set of people involved.
My fiance and I intend to remortgage our flat in Long Sutton with Aldermore. We have a son 19 who lives with us. Our solicitor requested us to identify any adults other than ourselves who reside at the property. The solicitor has now sent a form for our son to sign, giving up any rights in the event that the property is repossessed. I have two questions (1) Is this form unique to the Aldermore conveyancing panel as he did not need 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 Aldermore 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 Aldermore. This is solely used to protect Aldermore 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 Aldermore 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.
Do all mortgage companies provide you with an approved list of Long Sutton conveyancing solicitors? How do you know who is on the Nationwide conveyancing panel?
Long Sutton conveyancing firms themselves provide us confirmation that they are on the Nationwide conveyancing panel as opposed to being supplied with a list from Nationwide directly.
The Long Sutton conveyancing lawyers that I appointed last week on my purchase in Long Sutton have suddenly shut down. They were on acting for me because I needed a solicitor on the UBS conveyancing panel and my previous Long Sutton lawyer was not. I gave my credit card details for them to take one hundred and fifty pounds for searches. What do I do now?
If you have an estate agent involved then inform them immediately so that they can let the sellers know that there may be a slight delay due to the problems encountered. Most sellers would be sympathetic and urge their lawyer to send a new set of papers to your new solicitors. You should appoint new lawyers that are on the UBS conveyancing panel and notify the lender. If you have paid over any money, it will hopefully be held by the SRA as money in an intervened firm's bank accounts is transferred to the SRA. Then, the SRA or the intervention agent looks at the intervened firm's accounts to work out who the money belongs to. To claim your money you will need to contact the SRA. If the SRA cannot return money you are owed from the firm's bank accounts, or if they can only return part of the money, you can apply to the Compensation Fund for a grant. Your new lawyers may be able to help.
How does conveyancing in Long Sutton differ for newly converted properties?
Most buyers of new build property in Long Sutton come to us having been asked by the builder to sign contracts and commit to the purchase even before the premises is finished. This is because new home sellers in Long Sutton tend to purchase the real estate, plan the estate and want to get the plots sold off as they are building the properties. Buyers, therefore, will have to exchange contracts without actually seeing the house they are buying. To reduce the chances of losing the property, buyers should instruct conveyancing solicitors as soon as the property is reserved and mortgage applications should be submitted quickly. Due to the fact that it could be several months and even years between exchange of contracts and completion, the mortgage offer may need to be extended. It would be wise to use a lawyer who specialises in new build conveyancing especially if they are used to new build conveyancing in Long Sutton or who has acted in the same development.
Taking into account that I am about to spend 450k on a property in Long Sutton I would like to talk to a conveyancer about myhome move before instructing the firm. Can this be arranged?
We could not agree more - it is our preference to talk to you we do not take any clients on without you liaising with the lawyer due to be carrying out your property ownership legalities in Long Sutton.There is no ‘factory style conveyancing’ - every client is an important individual, not a case reference. The practices that we put you in touch with believe that the fees you are calculated and presented to you for residential conveyancing in Long Sutton should be the figure that you are charged.