My wife and I intend to remortgage our maisonette in Newington with Santander. We have a son approaching twenty who lives at home. 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 flat is repossessed. I have two concerns (1) Is this form unique to the Santander conveyancing panel as he never had to sign this form when we bought 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 Santander 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 Santander. This is solely used to protect Santander 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 Santander 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.
It has been three months since my purchase conveyancing in Newington completed. I have checked the Land Registry site which shows that I paid £150,000 when infact I paid £215,000. Why the discrepancy?
The price paid figure is taken from the application to register the purchase. It is the figure included in the Transfer (the legal deed which transfers the property from one person to the other) and referred to as the 'consideration' or purchase price. You can report an error in the price paid figure using the LR online form. In most cases errors result from typos so at first glance the figure. Do report it so they can double check and advise.
I have been on the look out for a flat up to £195,000 and identified one near me in Newington I like with a park and railway links nearby, however it only has 52 years on the lease. There is not much else in Newington for this price, so just wondered if I would be making a grave error buying a short lease?
If you require a home loan the remaining unexpired lease term will likely be a potential deal breaker. Reduce the offer by the amount the lease extension will cost if it has not already been discounted. If the existing owner has owned the property for at least 2 years you may request that they commence the lease extension formalities and pass it to you. You can add 90 years to the current lease and have £0 ground rent by law. You should speak to your conveyancing solicitor about this matter.
Are there any apps to assist me to identify a Newington solicitor on the Platform Home Loans Ltd conveyancing panel? I am a keen cyclist and am willing to travel upto 20miles to meet the lawyer.
You can use the search on this website. Please pick a lender and your location and you will see a number of Newington conveyancing lawyers based on proximity. We have detailed some Newington conveyancing firms towards the end of this page and you can telephone them to see whether they are on the Platform Home Loans Ltd member panel
Am I better off to instruct a Newington conveyancing practitioner who is local to the property I am buying? An old friend can handle the legal work but her office is 200miles away.
The benefit of a high street Newington conveyancing firm is that you can visit the firm to sign paperwork, deliver your identification documents and apply pressure on them where appropriate. Having local Newington know how is a bonus. However nothing is more important than finding someone that will pull out all the stops for you. If you know people who instructed your friend and they were happy that must outweigh using an unfamiliar Newington conveyancing solicitor solely due to them being based in the area.
I've recently bought a leasehold property in Newington. Do I have any liability for service charges relating to a period prior to my ownership?
In a situation where the service charge has already been demanded from the previous lessee and they have not paid you would not usually be personally liable for the arrears. Strange as it may seem, your landlord may still be able to take action to forfeit the lease. A critical element of leasehold conveyancing for your conveyancer to be sure to have an up to date clear service charge receipt before completion of your purchase. If you have a mortgage this is likely to be a requirement of your lender.
If you purchase part way through an accounting year you may be liable for charges not yet demanded even if they relate to a period prior to your purchase. In such circumstances your conveyancer would normally arrange for the seller to set aside some money to cover their part of the period (usually called a service charge retention).
I have had difficulty in negotiating a lease extension in Newington. Can the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal adjudicate on premiums?
Absolutely. We can put you in touch with a Newington conveyancing firm who can help.
An example of a Freehold Enfranchisement case for a Newington flat is 1-41 Royal Tower Lodge 40 Cartwright Street in April 2013. the tribunal adding the agreed value of capitalised ground rents and the reversion the price to be paid for the freehold was £1,187,000 This case related to 41 flats. The unexpired residue of the current lease was 107 years.