My husband and I are refinancing our penthouse in St Agnes with Nationwide. We have a son 18 who lives at home. Our solicitor requested us to identify any adults other than ourselves who lives in the flat. Our lawyer has now e-mailed a document for our son to sign, waiving any legal rights in the event that the flat is repossessed. I have a couple of concerns (1) Is this document specific to the Nationwide conveyancing panel as he never had to sign this form when we remortgaged 4 years ago (2) Does our son by signing this compromise his entitlement to inherit the property?
First, rest assured that your Nationwide conveyancing panel solicitor is doing the right thing 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 Nationwide. This is solely used to protect Nationwide 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 Nationwide 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.
I just acquired a property at auction in St Agnes. Conveyancing is necessary. What are my next steps?
Having to all intents and purposes signed on the dotted line you will need to appoint a conveyancing practitioner as a matter of urgency as you will have a pending a fixed date to complete the transaction. An auction property will ordinarily have a corresponding auction pack. This should include the copy title deeds, local authority and drainage searches. In the case of leasehold premises the conveyancing pack should contain a copy of the lease, management information and a sellers leasehold information form and other conveyancing documentation specific to a leasehold property. You need to pass this on to your appointed conveyancing solicitor at the earliest opportunity. Do make sure that your finances are organised to complete on the on the contractual date .
Please help - my lawyer advises that lack of planning permission insurance is needed on my purchase. What is the level of cover for St Agnes conveyancing?
The right level of lack of planning permission indemnity insurance depends on your lender. It would differ for example between Birmingham Midshires and The Royal Bank of Scotland. Conveyancing lawyers as opposed to members of the public take out such insurances.
I recently had an offer agreed on a house in St Agnes. My mortgage broker suggested a lawyer. I paid an advanced payment of £200. A couple of days later, the conveyancing practitioner contacted me to say 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.
Will my conveyancer be making enquiries regarding flooding as part of the conveyancing in St Agnes.
The risk of flooding is if increasing concern for conveyancers dealing with homes in St Agnes. There are those who acquire a property in St Agnes, completely aware that at some time, it may be flooded. However, leaving to one side the physical destruction, where a property is at risk of flooding, it may be difficult to obtain a mortgage, adequate building insurance, or dispose of the premises. There are steps that can be taken during the course of a property purchase to forewarn the purchaser.
Lawyers are not qualified to impart advice on flood risk, however there are a numerous checks that can be initiated by the purchaser or by their conveyancers which will give them a better understanding of the risks in St Agnes. The standard completed inquiry forms supplied to a buyer’s solicitor (where the solicitors are adopting what is known as the Conveyancing Protocol) incorporates a standard inquiry of the seller to find out whether the property has suffered from flooding. In the event that flooding has previously occurred which is not notified by the seller, then a purchaser may commence a compensation claim resulting from an incorrect reply. A purchaser’s solicitors should also commission an enviro search. This should indicate if there is a recorded flood risk. If so, more detailed inquiries should be initiated.
As co-executor for the will of my grandfather I am disposing of a property in Monmouth but live in St Agnes. My conveyancer (who is 200 miles from merequires that I execute a stat dec before the transaction finalising. Can you recommend a conveyancing lawyer in St Agnes to witness this legal document for me?
strictly speaking you are not likely to need to have the documents attested by a conveyancing solicitor. Ordinarily any notary public or solicitor will do regardless of whether they are based in St Agnes
I work for a long established estate agency in St Agnes where we see a number of flat sales put at risk due to leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have received inconsistent advice from local St Agnes conveyancing solicitors. Please can you confirm whether the seller of a flat can commence the lease extension formalities for the buyer?
As long as the seller has owned the lease for at least 2 years it is possible, to serve a Section 42 notice to kick-start the lease extension process and assign the benefit of the notice to the purchaser. The benefit of this is that the buyer can avoid having to sit tight for 2 years to extend their lease. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment has to be done before, or simultaneously with completion of the disposal of the property.
An alternative approach is to extend the lease informally by agreement with the landlord either before or after the sale. If you are informally negotiating there are no rules and so you cannot insist on the landlord agreeing to grant an extension or transferring the benefit of an agreement to the buyer.
St Agnes Conveyancing for Leasehold Flats - A selection of Questions you should ask Prior to buying
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Plenty St Agnes leasehold properties will be liable to pay a service bill for the upkeep of the block levied by the freeholder. Where you buy the flat you will have to pay this charge, usually in instalments during the year. This may differ from two or three hundred pounds to thousands of pounds for buildings with lifts and large communal areas. There will also be a ground rent for you to pay yearly, this is usually not a significant sum, say about £50-£100 but you need to enquire it because sometimes it could be many hundreds of pounds. How much is the ground rent and service charge? Are any of leasehold owners in dispute over their service charge payments?
Are St Agnes conveyancing solicitors under an obligation to the Law Society to supply transparent conveyancing costs?
Contained within the Solicitors Code of Conduct are prescriptive rules and regulations as to how the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) allow solicitors to publicise their charges to clients.The Law Society have practice note giving advice on how to publicise transparent charges to avoid breaching any such rule. Practice notes are not legal advice issued by the Law Society and is not to be interpreted as the only standard of good practice a conveyancing solicitor should adhere to. The Practice Note does, however, represent the Law Society’s view of acceptable practice for publicising conveyancing charges, and accordingly it’s a recommended read for any solicitor or conveyancer in St Agnes or beyond.