I am progressing with the sale of my ground floor flat in Newton Aycliffe and the EA has just e-mailed to say that the purchasers are appointing a new solicitor. The reason given is that the mortgage company will only deal with property lawyers on their conveyancing panel. On what basis would a leading lender only work with certain law firms rather the firm that they want to appoint for their conveyancing in Newton Aycliffe ?
Lenders have always had panels of law firms that can represent them, but in recent years big names such as Yorkshire Building Society, have reviewed and reduced their conveyancing panel– in some cases removing conveyancing firms who have acted for them for many years.
Mortgage companies justify this action to a rise in fraud by way of justification for the reduction – criteria have been narrowed as a smaller panel is easier to keep an eye on. Banks tend not to reveal how many solicitors have been dropped, claiming the information is commercially sensitive, but the Law Society claims that it is hearing daily from firms that have been removed from panels. Plenty of firms do not even realise they have been dropped until contacted by a borrower who has instructed them as might be the situation in your buyers' case. Your buyers are not going to have any sway in the decision.
I am buying a house mortgage free in Newton Aycliffe. I have lived for the previous twelve years in Newton Aycliffe. Conveyancing searches are a lot of money. As I know the area and road intimately should I not bother getting the solicitor to do all the conveyancing searches?
Provided that you do not need a mortgage, then all but one or two of the Newton Aycliffe conveyancing searches are non-obligatory. Your conveyancer will try and steer you, no-doubt strongly, that you should have searches carried out, but he is duty bound to do this. Do consider; if you are intend to dispose of the house at a future date, it may be of importance to your future buyer what the searches determine. On occasion properties with day to day issues can still show up negative search results. A competent conveyancing solicitor in Newton Aycliffe should be able to give you some sensible advice here.
The Newton Aycliffe conveyancing solicitors that just started acting on my house acquisition in Newton Aycliffe have suddenly shut down. They were on acting for me because I had to have a lawyer on the Coventry BS conveyancing panel and my previous Newton Aycliffe lawyer was not. I cut them a cheque for two hundred pounds in advance. What should be my next steps?
If you have an estate agent involved then let them know immediately so that they advise the vendors that there may be a slight delay due to reasons beyond your control. Most sellers would be sympathetic and urge their lawyer to send a new set of papers to your new solicitors. You will need to appoint new lawyers that are on the Coventry BS 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 solicitors may be able to assist.
The deeds to our house can not be found. The lawyers who did the conveyancing in Newton Aycliffe 4 years ago have long since closed. Will I be able to sell the house?
As long as the title is registered the details of your proprietorship will be documented by the Land Registry under a Title Number. It is possible to carry out a search at the Land Registry, find your house and get up to date copies of the Registered Entries for less than a fiver. Where the property is Leasehold then the Land Registry will also normally retain a file duplicate of the Registered Lease and again, a copy can be ordered for a small fee.
I'm purchasing my first flat in Newton Aycliffe with the aid of help to buy. The sellers would not budge the amount so I negotiated five thousand pounds worth of extras instead. The property agent advised me not disclose to my solicitor about this side-deal as it could affect my loan with Barclays Direct. Do I keep my lawyer in the dark?.
All lenders require a Disclosure of Incentives Form from the developer 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.
The property lawyers undertaking our conveyancing in Newton Aycliffe has forwarded documents to review that state the land is unregistered with epitome documents. How can it be that the property not registred at the Land Registry?
The majority of property in Newton Aycliffe is registered. An 'epitome' is basically a dossier of photocopies of documents affecting an unregistered title. Plenty of Newton Aycliffe conveyancing practitioners will be capable of dealing with such matters but if any uncertainty prevails the usual proposition presently is for the current owners to address the registration formalities first and thereafter sell - this will have a domino effect to cause a prolonged transaction.