The lawyer who helped my last purchase has given a fee estimate £1700 for freehold conveyancing in Southmead. I am hoping to sell a newly refurbished property for £125,000. Are the quoted fees excessive? Is it in excess of the average fee for conveyancing in Southmead?
The estimate does seem marginally overpriced. If you shop around you may be able to decrease the fees marginally by perhaps £100 plus VAT. On the other hand, you maylive to rue opting for an a cheaper conveyancer. If is important to ensure the conveyancer can act for your bank. You can employ our search tool to select a Southmead conveyancing company on the lender’s conveyancing panel which can often include conveyancing solicitors in Southmead.
A friend recommended that where I am buying in Southmead I should ask my conveyancer to carry out a Neighbourhood, Planning and Local Amenity Search. Can you explain what the purpose of this search is?
A search of this type is occasionally included in the estimate for your Southmead conveyancing searches. It is a large report of more than thirty pages, listing and setting out significant information about Southmead around the property and the people living there. It includes an Aerial Photograph, Planning Applications, Land Use, Mobile Phone Masts, Rights of Way, the Southmead Housing Market, Council Tax Banding, the demographics of People living in the area, the dominant type of Housing, the Average Property Price, Crime details, Southmead Education with maps and statistics, Local Amenities and other useful information regarding Southmead.
My wife and I have a terraced Victorian property in Southmead. Conveyancing practitioner represented me and Skipton Building Society. I did a free Land Registry search last week and there are two entries: one for freehold, the second leasehold under the exact same address. I'd like to know for sure, how can I find out??
You should assess the Freehold register you have again and check the Charges Register for mention of a lease. The best way to be sure that you are also the registered owner of the leasehold and freehold title as well is to check (£3). It is not completely unheard of in Southmead and other areas of the country and poses no real issues for owners other than when they sell they have to account for both freehold and leasehold interests when dealing with lenders. You can also enquire as to the situation with the conveyancing lawyer who conducted the purchase.
I'm buying my first flat in Southmead benefiting from help to buy. The developers would not budge the price so I negotiated five thousand pounds worth of fixtures and fittings instead. The property agent suggested that I not to tell my solicitor about the extras as it will jeopardize my loan with TSB. Should I keep quiet?.
All lenders require a Disclosure of Incentives Form from the developer of any new build, converted or renovated property, It is available online from the Lenders’ Handbook page on the CML website. CML form is completed and handed to the lender's surveyor when the inspection is done.
Lenders have different policies on incentives. Some accept none at all, cash or physical, while others will accept cash incentives up to 5%.
Hard to understand why the representative of a builder would be suggesting you withold information from a solicitor when all this will be clearly visible on forms the builder has to supply to its solicitor, the buyer's solicitor and the surveyor.
I've recently found out that there is a flying freehold issue on a property I have offered on a fortnight ago in what should have been a simple, no chain conveyancing. Southmead is where the house is located. Can you offer any advice?
Flying freeholds in Southmead are not the norm but are more likely to exist in relation to terraced houses. Even where you use a solicitor outside Southmead you would need to get your solicitor to go through the deeds very carefully. Your lender may require your conveyancing solicitor to take out an indemnity policy. Some of the more diligent conveyancing solicitors in Southmead may decide 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 property.
In what way does the Landlord & Tenant Act 1954 impact my business premises in Southmead and how can you help?
The particular law that you refer to gives protection to business leaseholders, giving them the right to apply to court for a continuation of occupancy at the end of the lease term. There are certain specified grounds that a landlord can refuse a lease renewal and the rules are complex. Fees are different for commercial conveyancing. Southmead is one of the hundreds of areas of the UK in which the firms we work with are located