My partner and I are planning to buy a property in Stocksfield and are in fact using a Stocksfield conveyancing practice. Within the past 48 hours our lawyer has sent a preliminary report and documents to look through with the expectation that exchange is imminent. TSB have this morning contacted us to advise us that they have now hit a problem as our Stocksfield conveyancer is not on their conveyancing panel. What do we do from here?
When purchasing a property with the benefit of a mortgage it is usual for the purchasers' lawyers to also act for the mortgage company. 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 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 Stocksfield solicitors, in which case it will likely add costs, and it will likely delay the transaction as you have another set of people involved.
We are buying a flat in Stocksfield. It might be a silly question but how we can trust a conveyancer? On the day of competition we will need to send funds into their account. What protection do we have from them run away with our monies?
Be assured that all money in a Solicitors client account is 100% safe, and even if your Solicitor ran off with it, the Law Society would reimburse you fully.
This question may be naive but I am wet behind the ears as FTB of a garden flat in Stocksfield. Do I collect the keys to the property on completion from my conveyancer? If so, I will find a High Street conveyancing solicitor in Stocksfield?
There is no need to visit the lawyers office on the day of completion. Conveyancing lawyers for you will electronically transfer the completion advance to the owner’s lawyers, and shortly after the monies have arrived, you should be able to pick up the keys from the Estate Agents and start moving into the property. This tends to happen early afternoon.
I have paid off my mortgage with Aldermore. I assume I don't need a Stocksfield conveyancer on the Aldermore panel to discharge the mortgage at the Land Registry. Please confirm.
If you have finished paying off your Aldermore mortgage, they may send you evidence showing that you have paid it off. Alternatively they may notify the Land Registry directly. The Land Registry need to see this evidence before they will remove the Aldermore mortgage from the register. Aldermore, and any evidence they send you, will determine the action you need to take. In cases where no conveyancer is acting for you and you have paid off your mortgage:
- but are not moving to another property
- where Aldermore has sent the Land Registry the discharge electronically, and
- Aldermore has instructed the Land Registry to do so
I acquired my house on 8 February and the transaction details are still not on the land registry website. Need I be worried? My conveyancing solicitor in Stocksfield said it should be formalised in a couple of weeks. Are properties in Stocksfield particularly slow to register?
There is nothing unique about conveyancing in Stocksfield registration formalities. As opposed to being determined by geographic area, timescales can adjust subject to who lodges the application, whether there are errors and whether the Land registry communicate with any interested parties. As of today approximately 80% of such applications are completed within two weeks but some can be subject to protracted delays. Historically registration takes place after the purchaser is living at the property so 'speed' is not always top priority yet if it is urgent that the the registration takes place urgently then you or your conveyancer can communicate with the Registry to express the reasoning for an expedited registration.
Due to the encouragement of my in-laws I had a survey completed on a property in Stocksfield ahead of retaining lawyers. I have been informed that there is a flying freehold element to the house. The surveyor has said that some lenders may refuse to issue a loan on this type of premises.
It depends who your proposed lender is. Santander has different instructions from Birmingham Midshires. Should you wish to telephone us we can check via the relevant lender. If you lender is happy to lend one our lawyers can assist as they are accustomed to dealing with flying freeholds in Stocksfield. Conveyancing may be slightly more expensive based on your lender's requirements.
Last October I purchased a leasehold house in Stocksfield. Do I have any liability for service charges for periods before my ownership?
In a situation where the service charge has already been demanded from the previous lessee and they have not paid you would not usually be personally liable for the arrears. Strange as it may seem, your landlord may still be able to take action to forfeit the lease. A critical element of leasehold conveyancing for your conveyancer to ensure to have an up to date clear service charge receipt before completion of your purchase. If you have a mortgage this is likely to be a requirement of your lender.
If you purchase part way through an accounting year you may be liable for charges not yet demanded even if they relate to a period prior to your purchase. In such circumstances your conveyancer would normally arrange for the seller to set aside some money to cover their part of the period (usually called a service charge retention).
I inherited a 1 bedroom flat in Stocksfield, conveyancing was carried out in 1999. Can you let me have an estimated range of the fair premium for a lease extension? Similar flats in Stocksfield with a long lease are worth £191,000. The average or mid-range amount of ground rent is £55 per annum. The lease terminates on 21st October 2079
You have 54 years unexpired the likely cost is going to span between £31,400 and £36,200 plus plus your own and the landlord's "reasonable" professional fees.
The figure above a general guide to costs for extending a lease, but we are not able to advice on the actual costs without more comprehensive investigations. Do not use the figures in a Notice of Claim or as an informal offer. There may be additional issues that need to be taken into account and you obviously should be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. Neither should you move forward based on this information before seeking the advice of a professional.
I own a leasehold flat in Stocksfield. Conveyancing was finished in last year. I have heard that I should not let the lease length get too short. What is the reasoning?
Stocksfield residential long term leases are for a fixed term - usually 99 years when they started. However many flats in Stocksfield were built or converted 30 or more years ago and so such leases now have less than eighty years left to run. That may seem like a long time but Banks, Building Societies and other mortgage lenders generally need leases to have a minimum of seventy five years remaining to adequate security. This means that when you come to sell the property you will need to extend the term of your lease if you are approaching eighty years. To increase the saleability of your property you should be thinking about whether to extend your lease well in advance of selling the property. There are also significant benefits to doing so before the lease reaches even eighty years as when the lease falls below 80 years the premium you have to pay to extend starts to get a lot more expensive.