My wife and I are hoping to acquire a house in Prescot and have instructed a Prescot conveyancing practice. Within the last couple of days our conveyancer has sent a preliminary report and documents to look through with a view to exchanging next week. Birmingham Midshires have this afternoon contacted us to advise us that they have now hit a problem as our Prescot lawyer is not on their approved list of lawyers. What do we do from here?
Where you are buying a property requiring 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 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 don't have to instruct a firm on the bank's conveyancing panel as you are at liberty to use your preferred Prescot lawyers, in which case it will likely add costs, and it will likely delay the transaction as you have another set of people involved.
The Prescot conveyancing solicitors that I recently instructed on my house acquisition in Prescot have without warning closed. They were on acting for me because I needed a firm on the Leeds Building Society conveyancing panel and my previous Prescot lawyer was not. I wrote 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 straight away so that they advise the vendors that there may be a slight delay due to reasons beyond your control. Hopefully they will 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 Leeds Building Society 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.
A colleague recommended that where I am purchasing in Prescot I should ask my conveyancer to execute a Neighbourhood, Planning and Local Amenity Search. What does it cover?
A search of this type is occasionally quoted for as part of the standard Prescot conveyancing searches. It is a large document of about 40 pages, listing and detailing important information about Prescot around the property and the people living there. It includes an Aerial Photograph, Planning Applications, Land Use, Mobile Phone Masts, Rights of Way, the Prescot Housing Market, Council Tax Banding, the type of People living in the area, the dominant type of Housing, the Average House Prices, Crime details, Local Education with plans and statistics, Local Amenities and other useful data regarding Prescot.
I am buying a new build house in Prescot with a mortgage from Britannia. The builders refused to move on the amount so I negotiated £7000 of extras instead. The house builders rep suggested that I not to tell my conveyancer about the side-deal as it could put at risk my loan with the lender. Is this normal?.
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.
We're novice buyers - agreed a price, but the selling agent has warned us that the owners will only go ahead if we instruct the agent's recommended solicitors as they need a ‘quick sale’. Our preferred option is to instruct a local solicitor accustomed to conveyancing in Prescot
We suspect that the seller is unaware of this requirement. If they desire ‘a quick sale', turning down a serious buyer is counter productive. Speak to the vendors direct and explain that (a)you are keen to buy (b)you are ready to go, with finances in place © you have nothing to sell (d) you intend to proceed fast (e)but you will continue to appoint your own,trusted Prescot conveyancing lawyers - rather thanthe ones that will provide the negotiator at the agency a kickback or achieve conveyancing thresholds demanded by senior management.
Do you have any top tips for leasehold conveyancing in Prescot from the point of view of speeding up the sale process?
- A significant proportion of the delay in leasehold conveyancing in Prescot can be avoided where you appoint lawyers as soon as your agents start marketing the property and request that they start to collate the leasehold documentation needed by the buyers’ solicitors. Many landlords or Management Companies in Prescot levy fees for providing management packs for a leasehold home. You or your lawyers should discover the actual amount of the charges. The management information can be applied for as soon as you have a buyer, thus accelerating the process. The average time it takes to receive management information is three weeks. It is the most usual reason for frustration in leasehold conveyancing in Prescot. If you have carried out any alterations to the property would they have required Landlord’s consent? In particular have you laid down wooden flooring? Most leases in Prescot state that internal structural alterations or addition of wooden flooring calls for a licence issued by the Landlord consenting to such works. If you dont have the approvals to hand do not communicate with the landlord without checking with your conveyancer in the first instance. You believe that you know the number of years left on your lease but you should verify this via your conveyancers. A buyer’s lawyer will be unlikely to recommend their client to to exchange contracts if the remaining number of years is below 75 years. In the circumstances it is essential at an early stage that you consider whether the lease term requires a lease extension. If it does, contact your solicitors before you put your home on the market for sale. If you are supposed to have a share in the Management Company, you should ensure that you are holding the original share document. Arranging a duplicate share certificate can be a lengthy process and slows down many a Prescot conveyancing transaction. If a new share certificate is required, you should approach the company officers or managing agents (where relevant) for this as soon as possible.
I inherited a 1st floor flat in Prescot, conveyancing formalities finalised half a dozen years ago. Can you give me give me an indication of the likely cost of a lease extension? Equivalent flats in Prescot with over 90 years remaining are worth £191,000. The ground rent is £55 yearly. The lease runs out on 21st October 2078
You have 53 years remaining on your lease we estimate the premium for your lease extension to be between £27,600 and £31,800 plus costs.
The figure above a general guide to costs for extending a lease, but we are not able to provide a more accurate figure in the absence of comprehensive investigations. You should not use this information in a Notice of Claim or as an informal offer. There may be other concerns that need to be taken into account and you obviously should be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. Please do not move forward placing reliance on this information without first getting professional advice.