My fiance and I are hoping to acquire a house in St Asaph and have instructed a St Asaph conveyancing practice. Within the last couple of days our solicitor has sent a preliminary report and documents to look through with a view to exchanging next week. Skipton Building Society have this morning contacted us to advise us that they have now hit a problem as our St Asaph conveyancer is not on their approved list of lawyers. Is this a problem?
When purchasing a property with mortgage finance it is standard for the purchasers' solicitors to also act for the purchaser's lender. 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 property lawyer should contact your bank and see if they can apply for membership of their conveyancing panel, but if that is not viable they will instruct their own lawyers to represent them. You are not legally obliged to appoint a law firm on the bank's conveyancing panel and you may continue to use your own St Asaph solicitors, in which case it will likely add costs, and it may delay matters as you have another set of people involved.
I am expecting a OIP from Coventry BS this week so we know how much we could potentially offer as otherwise we are dependent on web based calculators (which aren't taking into account credit checks etc). Do Coventry BS recommend any St Asaph solicitors on the Coventry BS conveyancing panel, or is it better to go independently?
You will need to appoint St Asaph solicitors independently although you'll need to choose one on the Coventry BS conveyancing panel. The solicitor represents both you and Coventry BS through the process.
I recently had an offer agreed on an apartment in St Asaph. My mortgage broker suggested a conveyancing practitioner. I paid an advanced payment of £200. A couple of days later, the property lawyer called me sheepishly admitting that they were not on the Clydesdale 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 Clydesdale 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.
Planning on purchasing a house in St Asaph. I have received an online quote from a licenced conveyancer, which states: "There will be no charge for dealing with the Lender if you are obtaining a mortgage". I take this to mean that there will be no additional fee if the solicitor is on the Clydesdale conveyancing panel. I wanted to make sure it means there will be no additional fees for dealing with the mortgage.
They are simply saying that the cost for acting for the lender is included in the fee being quoted. It is worth you checking that the St Asaph conveyancer is on the Clydesdale conveyancing panel.
It has been five months following my purchase conveyancing in St Asaph concluded. I have checked the Land Registry site which shows that I paid £150,000 when infact I paid £160,000. Why the discrepancy?
The price paid figure is taken from the application to register the purchase. It is the figure included in the Transfer (the legal deed which transfers the property from one person to the other) and referred to as the 'consideration' or purchase price. You can report an error in the price paid figure using the LR online form. In most cases errors result from typos so at first glance the figure. Do report it so they can double check and advise.
I'm buying my first flat in St Asaph with a mortgage from Skipton Building Society. The builders would not reduce the amount so I negotiated 6k of fixtures and fittings instead. The estate agent told me not disclose to my lawyer about the side-deal as it will jeopardize my mortgage with Skipton Building Society. 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 was recommended by a few estate agents in St Asaph to find a solicitor using your seach tool. What’s the financial inducement for Estate Agents to market your site over another?
We don’t give any financial incentive for pointing buyers and sellers to this site. We thought it would be too underhand a fee as members of the public would think, ‘Why is the agent getting a kickback? Why aren’t I getting any benefit too?’ We would prefer to grow our business on genuine recommendations.
I am a fortnight into a leasehold purchase having been recommend to a firm by the high street agent to perform conveyancing in St Asaph. I am am very disappointed with the level of service. Can you you assist me in finding new solicitors?
They would need to be very bad in order to consider changing them. Has your mortgage offer been sent? In the event that it has you will need to advise them of the new contact details and get the offer are issued to the new lawyers. The conveyancer needs to be on the lenders panel to avoid supplemental expenses and complications. So that should be your first question of the new conveyancers. The find a solicitor tool can help you find a lender approved lawyer for your conveyancing in St Asaph