Having sold my house in Shirehampton last February yet the purchaser is telephoning every few hours to moan that her conveyancer needs to hear from mysolicitor. What are the post completion sale legalities following completion?
Following your disposal your lawyer is obliged to deliver the transfer deeds and all of the paperwork to the buyer’s solicitors. If applicable, your solicitor must also evidence that the legal charge in favour of the lender has been discharged to the purchasers lawyers. There is unlikely to be post completion requirements unique to conveyancing in Shirehampton.
The Shirehampton conveyancing firm that I recently instructed on my house acquisition in Shirehampton have suddenly shut down. I chose them because I needed a solicitor on the HSBC conveyancing panel and my previous Shirehampton lawyer was not. I gave my credit card details for them to take £195 for searches. What are my options?
Assuming that you have an Estate Agent in the equation then let them know straight away so that they can let the sellers know that there may be a slight delay due to the problems encountered. Hopefully they will be sympathetic and urge their lawyer to send a new set of papers to your new solicitors. You should appoint new lawyers that are on the HSBC 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 lawyers should be in a position to assist.
I'm spending time looking at flats in Shirehampton and I am about to put in an offer. Is it premature to have a solicitor in place? I intend to finance via a mortgage with Santander.
You should start obtaining conveyancing quotes 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 forward their details on to the selling agent. Given that you are seeking a mortgage with Santander, make sure you remember to check that your lawyer is on the Santander conveyancing panel.
Completion of my purchase has taken place for my property in Shirehampton. Conveyancing was satisfactory but I feel I should register my dissatisfaction about the lender. How does one go about formally complaining?
All banks and building societies have complaints procedures. Your first port of call should be one of the lender’s branches or the Customer Services Department at head office. In most cases complaints to a lender are resolved very quickly. If you feel the matter is not resolved you can write to Financial Ombudsman Service with full details of your complaint.
I recently had an offer accepted on a house in Shirehampton. My mortgage broker pressured me to appoint their lawyer. I paid an upfront payment of £225. Not long after, the conveyancing practitioner called me sheepishly admitting that they were not on the Coventry BS 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 Coventry BS 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 used Arc property Solicitors several years ago for my conveyancing in Shirehampton. I now require my file but the law firm has closed. What do I do?
You should contact the Solicitors Regulatory Authority (SRA) to help locate your conveyancing files. They can be contacted on please contact on 0870 606 2555. Alternatively, you should use their online form to make an enquiry. You will need to provide the SRA with as much information as possible to assist their search, including the name and address in Shirehampton of the conveyancing firm of solicitors you previously retained, the name of conveyancing solicitor with whom you had dealings, and the date on which you last had dealings with the firm.
Due to the input of my in-laws I had a survey completed on a house in Shirehampton prior to retaining conveyancers. I have been told that there is a flying freehold aspect to the house. My surveyor has said that some lenders will not grant a loan on a flying freehold house.
It varies from the lender to lender. Santander has different instructions from Birmingham Midshires. If you contact us we can look into this further with the relevant mortgage company. If you lender is happy to lend one our lawyers can help as they are used to dealing with flying freeholds in Shirehampton. Conveyancing may be slightly more expensive based on your lender's requirements.
I was pointed in your direction by a number of property agents in Shirehampton to get a quote from a property lawyer on your site. What’s the financial advantage for Estate Agents to market your services ahead of alternative conveyancing organisations?
We don’t offer any referral fee for pointing buyers and sellers to this site. We found it would be just too difficult a fee because a client could think, ‘How come the agent getting a kickback? Why am I not receiving any benefit too?’ So we decided to step away from that.