My wife and I are hoping to buy a home in Lower Morden and are in fact using a Lower Morden conveyancing practice. Within the last couple of days our property lawyer has forwarded the sale agreement to be signed with a detailed report with the expectation that exchange is imminent. Santander have this morning contacted us to advise us that there is now an issue as our Lower Morden lawyer is not on their approved list of lawyers. Please explain?
If you are buying a property with the assistance of a mortgage it is normal for the purchasers' lawyers 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 Quality Scheme. Your property lawyer 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 lawyers to represent them. You are not legally obliged to appoint a law firm on the lender’s conveyancing panel and you may continue to use your own Lower Morden solicitors, in which case your legal fees may increase, and it will likely delay the transaction as you have another set of people involved.
Do I have to visit the offices of the solicitor to execute the legal charge? If so, I will appoint a lawyer who conducts conveyancing in Lower Morden so that I can pop in to their offices if necessary.
Whereas this was necessary twenty years ago, almost all lenders no longer need their conveyancing panel lawyer to witness the borrowers signature. You will still be obliged to hand over identification documents and there are still distinct advantages to instructing a local ayer, in your case a conveyancing solicitor in Lower Morden.
Have just purchased a repossessed house at auction in Lower Morden. Conveyancing is needed. What is next?
Having legally bound yourself to purchase you will need to find a conveyancing solicitor quickly as you will have a tight a fixed date to complete the deal. Every auction property should have an associated auction set of papers. This should include most,if not all of the paperwork that your lawyer requires. If you have purchased leasehold premises the auction pack may provide a copy of the lease, management information and a sellers leasehold information form and associated conveyancing paperwork specific to a leasehold property. You should give this to your appointed conveyancing solicitor at the earliest opportunity. You also need to ensure that your finances are in place to complete the transaction on the set completion date.
We have agreed to purchase a house in Lower Morden. One unusual aspect is that the roof has a solar panel. HSBC have issued a mortgage offer so presumably this is not a concern to them. Why is my solicitor raising questions about the panel?
As your lender is HSBC your lawyer must comply with the formal requirements set out in Section two of UK Finance Lenders’ Handbook for HSBC. The CML Handbook sets out minimum conditions for solar panel roof-space leases, and solicitors are required to report to HSBC where a lease fails to meet these specifications. The specifications relate to the installation of panels on properties countrywide and is not isolated to Lower Morden.
I recently had an offer agreed on an apartment in Lower Morden. My mortgage broker pressured me to appoint their conveyancing practitioner. I paid an upfront payment of £225. Not long after, the conveyancer contacted me embarrassingly acknowledging that they were not on the Clydesdale conveyancing panel. Am I right in thinking that I should be due a refund?
You should be able to recover this from the law firm if they were not on the Clydesdale panel. They should have asked at the outset which lender you were obtaining a mortgage with. An important lesson to readers of this site is to check that the lawyers are on the appropriate lender panel.
I need some expedited conveyancing in Lower Morden as I am faced with a deadline to exchange contracts inside one month. A mortgage is not required. Is it possible to avoid the conveyancing searches to save money and time?
As you are are a mortgage free purchaser you are at liberty not to have searches carried out although no lawyer would advise that you don't. Drawing on years of experience of conveyancing in Lower Morden the following are instances of issues that can appear and adversely impact the marketability of the property: Enforcement Actions, Outstanding Charges, Outstanding Grants, Unadopted Roads,...
I am purchasing a new build house in Lower Morden with the aid of help to buy. The developers would not budge the price so I negotiated 6k of fixtures and fittings instead. The property agent suggested that I not to tell my lawyer about the deal as it would affect my mortgage with Birmingham Midshires. Is this normal?.
All lenders require a Disclosure of Incentives Form from the builder of any new build, converted or renovated property, It is available online from the Lenders’ Handbook page on the CML website. CML form is completed and handed to the lender's surveyor when the inspection is done.
Lenders have different policies on incentives. Some accept none at all, cash or physical, while others will accept cash incentives up to 5%.
Hard to understand why the representative of a builder would be suggesting you withold information from a solicitor when all this will be clearly visible on forms the builder has to supply to its solicitor, the buyer's solicitor and the surveyor.
Over the last few months I have been searching for a leasehold apartment up to £195,000 and found one close by in Lower Morden I like with a park and transport links in the vicinity, however it's only got 61 remaining years left on the lease. There is not much else in Lower Morden suitable, so just wondered if I would be making a mistake buying a lease with such few years left?
If you need a home loan that many years will likely be problematic. Discount the price by the amount the lease extension will cost if it has not already been discounted. If the current proprietor has owned the premises for at least 2 years you can request that they start the process of the extension and pass it to you. An additional ninety years can be extended on to the current lease term with a zero ground rent applied. You should consult your conveyancing solicitor about this matter.