My home in Maida Hill is up for sale and I have a purchaser. Will my property lawyer have to be on the Kent Reliance conveyancing panel in order to deal with repayment of my mortgage?
Ordinarily, even if your lawyer is not on the Kent Reliance 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 in recent years.
A friend recommended that where I am purchasing in Maida Hill I should ask my conveyancer to perform a Neighbourhood, Planning and Local Amenity Search. What does it cover?
This is a search is sometimes included in the estimate for your Maida Hill conveyancing searches. It is not a small document of about 40 pages, listing and detailing significant information about Maida Hill 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, Maida Hill Education with maps and statistics, Local Amenities and other useful data concerning Maida Hill.
Me and my brother own a terraced Georgian property in Maida Hill. Conveyancing lawyer acted for me and Clydesdale. I did a free Land Registry search last week and I saw a couple of entries: one for freehold, the second leasehold with the exact same address. If a house is not a freehold shouldn't I have been informed?
You need to assess the Freehold register you have again and check the Charges Register for mention of a lease. The best way to be sure that you are also the registered owner of the leasehold and freehold title as well is to check (£3). It is not completely unheard of in Maida Hill and other areas of the country and poses no real issues for owners other than when they mortgage they have to account for both freehold and leasehold interests when dealing with mortgage companies. You can also check the situation with the conveyancing lawyer who completed the work.
How does conveyancing in Maida Hill differ for newly converted properties?
Most buyers of new build property in Maida Hill approach us having been asked by the builder to exchange contracts and commit to the purchase even before the property is built. This is because house builders in Maida Hill tend to buy 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 property lawyers 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 Maida Hill or who has acted in the same development.
Due to the input of my in-laws I had a survey completed on a house in Maida Hill before retaining conveyancers. I have been told that there is a flying freehold overhang to the house. The surveyor advised that some banks will refuse to grant a loan on this type of house.
It depends who your proposed lender is. Santander has different instructions for example to Halifax. Should you wish to call us we can look into this further with the appropriate bank. If you lender is happy to lend one our lawyers can assist as they are used to dealing with flying freeholds in Maida Hill. Conveyancing can be more complicated and therefore you should check with your conveyancing solicitor in Maida Hill to see if the conveyancing will be more expensive.
What are my options where I am dissatisfied with the property lawyer who carried out my conveyancing in Maida Hill?
We live in an imperfect world, and unfortunately occasionally matters do not go as planned. Nevertheless there is recourse if you were not happy with your conveyancing in Maida Hill. This varies from trying to resolve matters directly with them, through to reporting a lawyer to their regulator. If you remain dissatisfied you may consider getting in touch with the Legal Ombudsman.