My partner and I are hoping to purchase a house in Stanford Le Hope and are in fact using a Stanford Le Hope conveyancing practice. Within the last couple of days our conveyancer has sent a preliminary report and documents to look through in anticipation of exchanging contracts shortly. Birmingham Midshires have this morning contacted us to advise us that they have now hit a problem as our Stanford Le Hope lawyer is not on their approved list of lawyers. Is this a problem?
Where you are buying a property requiring a mortgage it is conventional for the purchasers' lawyers to also represent 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 Quality Scheme. Your property lawyer should contact your lender 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 Stanford Le Hope solicitors, in which case your legal fees may increase, and it will likely delay the transaction as you have another set of people involved.
I had intended to instruct a property lawyer in Stanford Le Hope for our house purchase. Our broker informed us that our mortgage company The Mortgage Works won't deal with them. Why is this not regarded as unfair competition?
Mortgage Companies ordinarily restrict either the type or the amount of conveyancing firms on their member panel. A common example of such criteria being that a law practice must have two or more partners. As well as restricting the type of firm, a few lenders have reduced the amount of solicitor practices they permit to represent them. You should note that The Mortgage Works have no responsibility for the quality of advice provided by any member of The Mortgage Works Conveyancer Panel. Mortgage fraud was a primary driver in the reduction of conveyancing panels since 2008 even though there remains mixed views about the level of solicitor engagement in some of that fraud. Figures from the Land Registry indicate that plenty of law firms, including some in or near Stanford Le Hope only perform one or two conveyances per annum.
I purchased a renovated Edwardian property in Stanford Le Hope. Conveyancing practitioner acted for me and Birmingham Midshires. I happened to do a free search for it on the Land Registry database and I saw two entries: one for freehold, the second leasehold with the matching property. I thought I was buying a freehold how can I check?
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 Stanford Le Hope and other areas of the country and poses no real issues for owners other than when they buy they have to account for both freehold and leasehold interests when dealing with lenders. You can also question the position with your conveyancing practitioner who conducted the purchase.
I am buying a new build house in Stanford Le Hope with a loan from Bank of Scotland. The builders refused to move on the amount so I negotiated five thousand pounds worth of fixtures and fittings instead. The property agent told me not to tell my lawyer about this extras as it will adversely affect my mortgage with Bank of Scotland. 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 am looking into buying my first house which is in Stanford Le Hope and I am already nervous. I couldn't find anything specific about Stanford Le Hope. Conveyancing will be needed in due course but do you know about the Stanford Le Hope area? or perhaps some other tips you can share?
Rather than looking online forget looking online you should go and have a look at Stanford Le Hope. In the meantime here are some basic statistics that we found
I need to appoint a conveyancing solicitor for purchase conveyancing in Stanford Le Hope. I've stumble across a site which appears to be the perfect solution If it is possible to get all formalities done via web that would be preferable. Should I be wary? What are the potential pitfalls?
As usual with these online conveyancers you need to read ALL the small print - did you notice the extra charge for dealing with the mortgage?