My wife and I are hoping to purchase a flat in Rushden and have instructed a Rushden conveyancing practice. Within the past 48 hours our lawyer has forwarded the sale agreement to be signed with a detailed report with the expectation that exchange is imminent. Halifax have this morning contacted us to advise us that they have now hit a problem as our Rushden conveyancer is not on their conveyancing panel. Is this a problem?
When purchasing a property with the benefit of a mortgage it is normal for the purchasers' lawyers to also act for 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 solicitor should contact your lender 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 are not legally obliged to appoint a law firm on the bank's conveyancing panel as you are at liberty to use your preferred Rushden lawyers, in which case it will likely add costs, and it may delay matters as you have another set of people involved.
I require conveyancing for an apartment in a relatively new development (five years built) in Rushden. The vast majority the properties have already been sold. Is it strictly necessary to order local searches as part of conveyancing in Rushden?
Conveyancing Searches are a central link in the Rushden conveyancing process. There are numerous companies conducting Rushden conveyancing searches, as well direct from the local authority. These are usually referred to as personal search companies and they produce, not surprisingly, personal searches. Nevertheless, all Local Authority Search conveyancing products have one thing in common - they must obtain their data from the local authority.
We previously appointed conveyancers with offices in Rushden on the Clydesdale solicitor approved list. They are now charging me an additional fee for dealing with the Clydesdale mortgage. Is this an additional conveyancing fee specified by Clydesdale?
As unfair as it may seem, as long as it’s in their Terms and Conditions or estimate then yes your lawyer can levy a fee for this. This fee is not set by Clydesdale but by your Rushden solicitor. Plenty of firms on the Clydesdale panel will charge ’dealing with mortgage’ fee but many firms include it on their overall fee.
I'm spending time looking at apartments in Rushden and I am now considering a potential offer. Is it sensible to have a property lawyer on ‘stand by’? I intend to finance via a home loan with Yorkshire BS.
You should start requesting conveyancing estimates from solicitors ASAP. Once you decide who you want to use and once your offer is accepted you can instruct them to work for you and pass their details on to the estate agent. As you are obtaining a mortgage with Yorkshire BS, make sure you remember to check that your lawyer is on the Yorkshire BS conveyancing panel.
I recently had an offer accepted on an apartment in Rushden. My mortgage broker pressured me to appoint their solicitor. I paid an advanced payment of £225. Not long after, the property lawyer called me sheepishly admitting that they were not on the UBS 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 UBS 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.
I own a terraced Georgian property in Rushden. Conveyancing lawyer acted for me and Accord Mortgages Ltd. I did a free Land Registry search last week and there are a couple of entries: one for freehold, another for leasehold with the exact same address. Is it worth asking Accord Mortgages Ltd to clarify?
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 proprietor of the leasehold and freehold title as well is to check (£3). It is not completely unheard of in Rushden and other areas of the country and poses no real issues for owners other than when they buy they have to account for both freehold and leasehold interests when dealing with purchasers. You can also check the situation with your conveyancing practitioner who carried out the work.
I am 3 weeks into a freehold purchase having been recommend to conveyancers by the local agent to handle our conveyancing in Rushden. I am not happy. Could you you assist me in finding new lawyers?
A solicitor would have to be really bad to suggest diss instructing them. Has your mortgage offer been issued? If so you will need to inform them of the replacement conveyancer and have the offer are issued to the new lawyers. Your new conveyancer should be on the mortgage company panel to avoid added fees and complications. So that should be your first question of the new lawyers. Our search tool will assist you in finding a bank approved conveyancer for your home move in Rushden
I am employed by a long established estate agent office in Rushden where we have experienced a number of flat sales put at risk due to leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have received conflicting advice from local Rushden conveyancing solicitors. Please can you confirm whether the owner of a flat can instigate the lease extension formalities for the buyer?
Provided that the seller has owned the lease for at least 2 years it is possible, to serve a Section 42 notice to start the lease extension process and assign the benefit of the notice to the purchaser. This means that the proposed purchaser can avoid having to sit tight for 2 years for a lease extension. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment has to be done prior to, or simultaneously with completion of the disposal of the property.
Alternatively, it may be possible to agree the lease extension with the freeholder either before or after the sale. If you are informally negotiating there are no rules and so you cannot insist on the landlord agreeing to grant an extension or transferring the benefit of an agreement to the purchaser.
Rushden Leasehold Conveyancing - Examples of Queries before Purchasing
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Please inform me if there are any major works in the planning that will increase the service charges? You should be aware that where the lease has no more than eighty years it will affect the salability of the property. It is worth checking with your mortgage company that they are happy with the length of the lease. A short lease means that you will almost definitely have to extend the lease at some point and you need to have some idea of how much this would cost. Remember, in most cases you will need to own the premises for two years before you are eligible to exercise a lease extension. Is there a share of the freehold?