My wife and I are refinancing our maisonette in Sale with Bank of Ireland. We have a son 19 who lives with us. Our solicitor requested us to identify any adults other than ourselves who lives in the flat. Our lawyer has now e-mailed a document for our son to sign, giving up any rights in the event that the flat is forfeited by the lender. I have a couple of questions (1) Is this form unique to the Bank of Ireland conveyancing panel as he never had to sign this form when we purchased 3 years ago (2) Does our son by signing this compromise his rights to inherit the property?
First, rest assured that your Bank of Ireland 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 Bank of Ireland. This is solely used to protect Bank of Ireland 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 Bank of Ireland 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.
Various internet forums that I have come across warn that are the number one reason for obstruction in Sale conveyancing transactions. Is that correct?
The Council of Property Search Organisations (CoPSO) has noted the conclusions of a review by MoveWithUs that conveyancing searches do not figure within the top 10 causes of delays in the conveyancing process. Searches are not likely to feature in any slowing down conveyancing in Sale.
Over the last few months I have been searching for a flat up to £305k and found one round the corner in Sale I like with a park and transport links nearby, the downside is that it's only got 51 years unexpired on the lease. There is not much else in Sale in this price bracket, so just wondered if I would be making a grave error purchasing a lease with such few years left?
Should you need a home loan that many years may be an issue. Discount the offer by the expected lease extension will cost if it has not already been discounted. If the existing owner has owned the premises for at least twenty four months you could request that they start the process of the extension and pass it to you. An additional ninety years can be extended on to the current lease term with a zero ground rent applied. You should consult your conveyancing lawyer about this.
I have been advised by three or four local estate agents in Sale to find a solicitor on your site. Is there a financial upside for Estate Agents to promote your lawyers over and above another?
We don’t give any referral fee for pointing buyers and sellers in our direction. We found it would be just too difficult to pay a commission as a client could think, ‘How come the agent getting a kickback? Why aren’t I getting any benefit too?’ So we decided to step away from that.
Having checked my lease I have discovered that there are only Sixty One years unexpired on my lease in Sale. I now want to get lease extension but my landlord is absent. What options are available to me?
On the basis that you qualify, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can apply to the County Court for an order to dispense with the service of the initial notice. This will enable the lease to be lengthened by the magistrate. However, you will be required to prove that you have made all reasonable attempts to find the landlord. In some cases an enquiry agent should be helpful to carry out a search and prepare an expert document which can be used as proof that the freeholder is indeed missing. It is wise to seek advice from a property lawyer both on proving the landlord’s absence and the vesting order request to the County Court covering Sale.
Sale Conveyancing for Leasehold Flats - Examples of Questions you should consider Prior to Purchasing
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Most Sale leasehold flats will be liable to pay a service charge for maintenance of the block invoiced by the landlord. Where you acquire the property you will have to pay this contribution, normally in instalments throughout the year. This could differ from a couple of hundred pounds to thousands of pounds for bigger purpose-built buildings. In all likelihood there will be a ground rent for you to pay yearly, this is usually not a large figure, say about £25-£75 but you should to enquire as on occasion it can be many hundreds of pounds. If a Sale lease has less than eighty years it will impact the value of the flat. Check with your bank that they are willing to go ahead with the loan given the lease term. Leases with fewer than 80 years remaining means that you will almost definitely need a lease extension at some point and you need to have some idea of what this would cost. For most Salelease extensions you will need to own the property for two years in order to be legally able to carry out a lease extension. Are any of leasehold owners in dispute over their service charge payments?
I need to assess costs for conveyancing in Sale from three lawyer and decide on one. Do I instruct them to hold tight until I have found somewhere to acquire.
You should only ask your lawyer to commence work and submit searches once the offer has been accepted on the property particularly as Sale conveyancing searches are not cheap.