My wife and I are acquiring a newly built duplex in Ratcliff and my solicitor is advising me that she is duty bound to the mortgage company to disclose incentives from the builder. I am under pressure to exchange contracts and I don't want to delay deal. Is my lawyer right?
You should not exchange unless you have been advised to do so by your lawyer. A precondition to being on a lender panel is to comply with the UK Finance Lenders’ Handbook conditions. The CML Conveyancing Handbook requires that your lawyer have the appropriate Disclosure of Incentive form completed by the developer and accepted by your lender.
Can I use your services to recommend a Conveyancing solicitor in Ratcliff even where I’m not buying or disposing of a house, for instance if I wish to acquire an office in Ratcliff with a mortgage from Skipton Building Society?
Our comparison service is mainly utilised to locate domestic conveyancing solicitors in Ratcliff but we have recorded towards the end of this page a selection of Ratcliff commercial conveyancing firms. You will need to enquire with the company directly to see if they are also authorised to represent Skipton Building Society
We are selling our flat in Ratcliff. Does the conveyancer have to be on the Skipton conveyancing panel in order to deal with the discharge of my mortgage?
Ordinarily, even if your lawyer is not on the Skipton 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 currently.
I happen to be the single beneficiary of my late grandmother’s estate and I have everything in my name now, including the my former home in Ratcliff. The Ratcliff property was put into my name in January. I want to move. I do know about the Mortgage Lenders 6 month 'rule', meaning my proprietorship may be considered the same way as though I had purchased the house in January. Do I have to wait half a year to sell?
The CML handbook requires solicitors to: "report to us immediately if the owner or registered proprietor has been registered for less than six months." By the strict wording you may be impacted by that. Most mortgage companies would take a pragmatic view as this provision chiefly exists to identify subsales or the wholesaling and assigning of property.
The mortgage over my property is with Barclays for my property in Ratcliff. Conveyancing was finalised a year ago. In the event that I decide to rent out the flat and do not currently have a buy-to-let mortgage do I need to remortgage to a BTL mortgage or inform Barclays?
You must advise Barclays before renting your property as this is likely to be a breach of Barclays’s mortgage conditions. In many cases banks or building societies will permit you to let out your former home without needing to switch to a buy-to-let mortgage but some lenders will add a surcharge to your mortgage rate to reflect the higher risk. You should contact Barclays directly. You need not do this via a Barclays conveyancing panel lawyer.
I recently had an offer agreed on an apartment in Ratcliff. My financial adviser suggested a solicitor. I paid an upfront payment of £200. A couple of days later, the conveyancer contacted me to say that they were not on the Bank of Ireland 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 Bank of Ireland 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.
We are one month into a freehold purchase having been referred to a firm by the selling agent to perform conveyancing in Ratcliff. I am am starting to be disappointed with the level of service. Can you you assist me in finding new lawyers?
They would need to be very poor to suggest changing them. Has the loan offer been issued? If so you must advise them of the replacement conveyancer and get the mortgage documents are issued to the new lawyers. Your solicitor ideally should be on the mortgage company approved list to avoid added expenses and frustration. That should be your starting point. Our search tool can help you find a lender approved solicitor for your home move in Ratcliff
Why do Ratcliff conveyancing fees are higher for leasehold and freehold properties?
There is always more work required for leasehold conveyancing. Ratcliff has many leasehold properties. There is more paperwork involved in the purchase: for example, the lease and leasehold information (including up to date service charge, ground rent and buildings insurance details) obtained from the freeholder or managing agents. There are strict criteria that the lease must meet in order to be acceptable to a mortgage company. If it does not meet these requirements, the lease must be amended, which can involve additional expense for the seller.