My partner and I are looking to acquire a property in South London and have appointed a South London conveyancing practice. Within the past 48 hours our solicitor has forwarded the sale agreement to be signed with a detailed report in anticipation of exchanging contracts shortly. TSB have this afternoon contacted us to advise us that they have now hit a problem as our South London lawyer is not on their conveyancing panel. Please explain?
When purchasing a property with mortgage finance it is usual for the purchasers' solicitors 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 Quality 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 solicitors to act. You are not legally obliged to appoint a law firm on the lender’s conveyancing panel and you may continue to use your own South London solicitors, in which case your legal fees may increase, and it will likely delay the transaction as you have another set of people involved.
Having sold my house in South London last January yet the purchaser is SMS messaging every few hours to say their conveyancer needs to hear from mine. What should my lawyer have done now that I have sold?
Following your disposal your solicitor should deliver the transfer documentation and all of the paperwork to the buyer’s conveyancer. Depending on the transaction, your conveyancer must also evidence that the home loan has been discharged to the purchasers conveyancers. There are no post completion tasks peculiar conveyancing in South London.
My house in South London is up for sale and I have a buyer. Will the lawyer have to be on the Yorkshire BS conveyancing panel in order to deal with repayment of my mortgage?
Ordinarily, even if your lawyer is not on the Yorkshire BS conveyancing panel they can still act for you on your sale. It might be that the lender will not release the original deeds (if applicable and increasingly irrelevant) until after the mortgage is paid off. You should speak to your lawyer directly before you start the process though to ensure that there is no problem as lenders are changing their panel criteria fairly frequently in recent years.
I used Wolstenholmes a few years ago for my conveyancing in South London. I now require my papers but the law firm is no longer operating. 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 South London of the conveyancing firm of solicitors you previously hired, the name of conveyancing solicitor with whom you had dealings, and the date on which you last had dealings with the firm.
I've recently found out that there is a flying freehold element on a house I put an offer in two weeks back in what should have been a straight forward, no chain conveyancing. South London is where the house is located. Can you shed any light on this issue?
Flying freeholds in South London are not the norm but are more likely to exist in relation to terraced houses. Even though you don't necessarily need a conveyancing solicitor in South London you would need to get your solicitor to go through the deeds thoroughly. Your mortgage company may require your conveyancing solicitor to take out an indemnity policy. Some of the more diligent conveyancing solicitors in South London may ascertain that this is not enough and that the deeds be re-written to give you the most up to date legal protection. If so, the next door neighbour also had to sign up to the revised deeds.It is possible that your lender will not accept the situation so the sooner you find out the better. You should also check with your insurance broker as to whether they will insure a flying freehold premises.
It may have been a long time coming a mortgage agreement from a lender for the refinancing of my 4 bedroom garden flat is to be issued any day now. Are you able to recommend an efficient remortgage conveyancing law firm in South London ?
This site is not designed to help in pursuit of a cheap conveyancing in South London. Our aim is to provide cost effective conveyancing but we do not work with the cheapest lawyers. Avoid the trap of appointing brokers offering £99 conveyancing in South London.At best, in going for cheap conveyancing, you will get what you pay for and at worst you will end up invoiced for extras and still not receive the service required.