My fiance and I are planning to acquire a property in Sands End and have instructed a Sands End conveyancing practice. Within the last couple of days our property lawyer has forwarded the sale agreement to be signed with a detailed report with a view to exchanging next week. Nottingham Building Society have this afternoon contacted us to advise us that they have now hit a problem as our Sands End conveyancer is not on their approved list of lawyers. Is this a problem?
When purchasing a property with the benefit of a mortgage it is normal for the purchasers' lawyers to also represent the mortgage company. 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 Accreditation Scheme. Your property lawyer should contact your mortgage company 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 and you may continue to use your own Sands End solicitors, in which case it will likely add costs, and it will likely delay the transaction as you have another set of people involved.
As someone clueless as to conveyancing in Sands End what is your top tip you can impart concerning the ownership transfer in Sands End
You may not hear this from too many lawyers but conveyancing in Sands End or throughout England and Wales is an adversarial experience. Put another way, when it comes to conveyancing there exists plenty of room for friction between you and other parties involved in the ownership transfer. For instance, the vendor, estate agent and sometimes your bank. Choosing a solicitor for your conveyancing in Sands End an important selection as your conveyancer is your adviser, and is the SOLE party in the legal process whose responsibility is to look after your legal interests and to protect you.
Every so often a third party with a vested interest may attempt to sway you that you should follow their advice. For example, the property agent may claim to be assisting by claiming that your solicitor is slow. Or your mortgage broker may tell you to do something that is contrary to your solicitors recommendation. You should always trust your lawyer above all other parties when it comes to the legal transfer of property.
My Conveyancer in Sands End has never been on on the Britannia Solicitor Panel. Can I still continue with my prefered solicitor notwithstanding that they are excluded from the Britannia approved list?
Your options are as follows:
- Complete the purchase with your preferred Sands End lawyers but Britannia will need to instruct a lawyer on their panel. This will result in additional overall legal charges as well as cause delays.
- Find a new solicitor to act in the conveyancing, obviously checking they are Convince your conveyancer to use their best endeavours to join the Britannia conveyancing panel
A colleague advised me that where I am buying in Sands End I should carry out a Neighbourhood, Planning and Local Amenity Search. What does it cover?
This is a search is occasionally quoted for as part of the standard Sands End conveyancing searches. It is not a small document of about 40 pages, listing and setting out significant information about Sands End around the property and the people living there. It incorporates an Aerial Photograph, Planning Applications, Land Use, Mobile Phone Masts, Rights of Way, the local Housing Market, Council Tax Banding, the type of People living in the area, the dominant type of Housing, the Average Property Price, Crime details, Sands End Education with maps and statistics, Local Amenities and other useful data concerning Sands End.
Due to the guidance of my in-laws I had a survey completed on a house in Sands End prior to appointing solicitors. I have been informed that there is a flying freehold overhang to the property. Our surveyor has said that some lenders may not grant a loan on such a home.
It varies from the lender to lender. HSBC has different instructions from Birmingham Midshires. Should you wish to call us we can check via the appropriate mortgage company. If you lender is happy to lend one our lawyers can assist as they are used to dealing with flying freeholds in Sands End. Conveyancing can be more complicated and therefore you should check with your conveyancing solicitor in Sands End to see if the conveyancing costs will increase in light of this.
The property lawyers carrying out our conveyancing in Sands End has forwarded documents to review that reveal that the property is unregistered with epitome documents. Why is the property not yet recorded at the Land Registry?
Whilst most properties in Sands End are now registered with HMLR there are still some that remain unregistered. Any property in Sands End that has been remortgaged since the late 1980’s will have been registered at the HMLR under the compulsory ‘first registration’ scheme. However, if a Sands End property has not changed hands in that time then it’s likely the old fashioned title deeds will be the only evidence of ownership.Many Sands End conveyancing solicitors should be capable of dealing with such matters but if any uncertainty reigns the conventional recommendation presently seems to be for the seller to deal with the registration formalities first and then deal with the sale conveyance - this this chain of events will result in a significant delay.