My wife and I are looking to buy a flat in Skipton and have appointed a Skipton conveyancing practice. Within the last couple of days our conveyancer has forwarded the sale agreement to be signed with a detailed report with a view to exchanging next week. Leeds Building Society have this morning contacted us to inform me that there is now an issue as our Skipton lawyer is not on their conveyancing panel. What do we do from here?
When purchasing a property with the benefit of a mortgage it is usual 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 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 solicitors to act. You are not legally obliged to appoint a law firm on the bank's conveyancing panel and you may continue to use your own Skipton solicitors, in which case your legal fees may increase, and it will likely delay the transaction as you have another set of people involved.
My wife and I intend to remortgage our maisonette in Skipton with Yorkshire BS. We have a son 19 who lives at home. Our solicitor has asked us to disclose anyone over the age of 17 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 repossessed. I have a couple of concerns (1) Is this form unique to the Yorkshire BS conveyancing panel as he never had to sign this form when we bought 4 years ago (2) Does our son by signing this compromise his rights to inherit the property?
On the face of it your lawyer has done nothing wrong 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 Yorkshire BS. This is solely used to protect Yorkshire BS 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 Yorkshire BS 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.
We are planning to acquire a property and need a conveyancing solicitor in Skipton who is on the RBS approved panel. Could you point me in the right direction as regards a solicitor?
Our service is limited to being a directory service for firms who wish to be listed as being on the approved conveyancing panel for RBS . We don't recommend any particular firms conducting conveyancing in Skipton.
When it comes to lenders such as Virgin Money, do Skipton conveyancers incur an annual charge to be on the list of approved solicitors?
We are unaware of any bank fees to be on their panel, although some do levy an administration fee to deal with the processing of the conveyancing panel submission.
The formalities of my remortgage has taken place for my property in Skipton. Conveyancing was satisfactory but I feel I should register my dissatisfaction about the lender. How does one go about formally complaining?
All lenders have complaints procedures. Your first point of contact should be one of the lender’s branches or the Customer Services Department at head office. Ordinarily complaints to a lender are sorted out very quickly. However if you are not satisfied that the matter is not resolved you can write to Financial Ombudsman Service with full details of your complaint.
I recently had an offer agreed on an apartment in Skipton. My mortgage broker pressured me to appoint their property lawyer. I paid an upfront payment of £200. A few days later, the solicitor contacted me embarrassingly acknowledging 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.
Just had an offer accepted on a new build apartment in Skipton. Conveyancing is a frightening process at the best of times but I have never purchased a new build flat before. What sort of enquires would be asked in new build conveyancing.
Here are examples of a selection of leasehold new build questions that you may expect your new-build leasehold conveyancing in Skipton
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If there are lifts in the building, please confirm that the owners of flats on the ground and basement floors will not be required to contribute towards the cost of maintenance and renewal. The Vendor must covenant to keep unoccupied units in good repair until long leases are granted therefore. Will control of the Management Company (if any) be handed over to purchasers on completion of the last sale or earlier? Has the Lease plan been approved by the Land Registry and if not when will they be lodged for this purpose? There must be mutual enforceability of lessee’s covenants.
Due to the input of my in-laws I had a survey completed on a property in Skipton in advance of appointing lawyers. I have been told that there is a flying freehold overhang to the property. Our surveyor has said that some mortgage companies may not give a loan on a flying freehold home.
It varies from the lender to lender. Lloyds has different instructions for example to Halifax. If you e-mail us we can check with the relevant bank. If you lender is happy to lend one our lawyers can help as they are accustomed to dealing with flying freeholds in Skipton. Conveyancing may be slightly more expensive based on your lender's requirements.