My wife and I are intent on buying a flat in St Athan. My lawyer is not on the lender conveyancing list. Is it possible for me to use my St Athan conveyancing solicitor notwithstanding that they are excluded from the lender list of approved lawyers?
You have a couple of options available to you here
- Carry on with your preferred St Athan property lawyer but your bank will no doubt appoint a property lawyer from their approved panel. The net result is additional charges and likely delay.
- Appoint a fresh conveyancer to conduct the conveyancing, ensuring that they are on the mortgage company conveyancing panel.
- Appeal to your lawyer to seek to join the mortgage company panel
The owners of the house we are purchasing have appointed a conveyancing solicitor in St Athan who has recommended a preliminary agreement with a non-refundable deposit of 5k. Are such contracts promoted for St Athan conveyancing transactions?
This type of agreement is not the norm in St Athan, conveyancers are often found to direct clients away from them as they detract from the primary focus, namely conveyancing and if you end up having your deposit forfeited then the solicitor is left exposed. Secondly, there is no guarantee that just because the seller has executed an exclusivity contract they will sell to you. They may be in contravention of the agreement if they are offered sufficient incentive to do so because an aggrieved party with the benefit of a exclusivity agreement will still be obliged establish consequential losses from the breach and this may not compare to the financial benefit that your seller may obtain by breaking the contract, however morally unworthy the behaviour is.
I am refinancing my home in St Athan, does my lawyer need to be on the Virgin Money Solicitor panel?
There is nothing to stop you using your solicitor, but Virgin Money will insist on their interests being represented by a firm on their conveyancing panel. There is greater potential for delays and confusion with an additional lawyer added to the mix, and it will undoubtedly be more expensive too.
My friend suggested that where I am buying in St Athan I should ask my conveyancer to execute a Neighbourhood, Planning and Local Amenity Search. What does it cover?
This is a search is occasionally included in the estimate for your St Athan conveyancing searches. It is not a small document of more than thirty pages, listing and detailing significant information about St Athan around the property and the people living there. It includes an Aerial Photograph, Planning Applications, Land Use, Mobile Phone Masts, Rights of Way, the local Housing Market, Council Tax Banding, the type of People living in the area, the dominant type of Housing, the Average House Prices, Crime statistics, St Athan Education with plans and statistics, Local Amenities and other useful information about St Athan.
Planning to exchange soon on a ground floor flat in St Athan. Conveyancing solicitors have said that they will have a report out to me next week. What should I be looking out for?
The report on title for your leasehold conveyancing in St Athan should include some of the following:
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Whether the landlord has obligations to ensure rights of quiet enjoyment over your property and do you know what it means in practice? Will you be prohibited or prevented from having pets in the property? You must be advised what is to be regarded as a Nuisance in the lease What remedies are open the freeholder should you have breached the provisions of the lease?
I purchased a 1 bedroom flat in St Athan, conveyancing was carried out June 2009. Can you please calculate a probable premium for a statutory lease extension? Equivalent properties in St Athan with an extended lease are worth £206,000. The average or mid-range amount of ground rent is £45 yearly. The lease expires on 21st October 2093
With only 67 years unexpired we estimate the price of your lease extension to span between £10,500 and £12,000 plus plus your own and the landlord's "reasonable" professional fees.
The suggested premium range that we have given is a general guide to costs for extending a lease, but we are not able to supply a more accurate figure in the absence of detailed due diligence. Do not use this information in a Notice of Claim or as an informal offer. There are no doubt additional issues that need to be considered and clearly you want to be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. Neither should you move forward placing reliance on this information before seeking the advice of a professional.
We have AIP from The Royal Bank of Scotland who suggested we could borrow up to £117k. At what point do we need to instruct a practitioner for conveyancing? St Athan is where we plan to move to.
You can appoint a solicitor now requesting that they generate a file on your behalf. This will trigger: 1) the selling agent to issue a Sales Memo to the relevant parties 2) the seller’s conveyancing practitioner to submit the draft paperwork. However, do not instruct your conveyancing practitioner to order searches until you have your valuation report from The Royal Bank of Scotland and you are happy to move forward.