My fiance and I are planning to buy a house in Surrey and have instructed a Surrey conveyancing firm. Within the past 48 hours our solicitor has forwarded the sale agreement to be signed with a detailed report with a view to exchanging next week. Barnsley Building Society have this morning contacted us to inform me that they have now hit a problem as our Surrey lawyer is not on their approved list of lawyers. Please explain?
When purchasing a property with mortgage finance it is normal for the purchasers' solicitors to also represent 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 solicitor 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 lender’s conveyancing panel as you are at liberty to use your preferred Surrey lawyers, in which case it will likely add costs, and it may delay matters as you are adding another lawyer into the mix.
My nephew is about to exchange on a house that has just been built in Surrey with a home loan from Santander. His conveyancer has said that there is a delay in receiving the ‘Disclosure of Incentive Form’. Who needs to receive the form?
The document is intended to provide information to the main parties engaged in the transaction. Therefore, it will be provided to your son’s lawyer who should be on the Santander conveyancing panel as a standard part of the process, and to the valuer when asked. The developer will be required to start the process by downloading the form and completing it. The form will therefore need to be available for the valuer at the time of his or her site visit. The form should be sent to the Santander conveyancing panel solicitor as early as possible, in order to avoid any last minute delays, and no later than at exchange of contracts.
We see that you have a search directory listing law firms on the Kent Reliance conveyancing panel. Do firms pay you a referral fee if I instruct them for our conveyancing in Surrey?
We are a listing service only for law firms wishing to communicate if they are on the Kent Reliance conveyancing panel or other lender panels. We do not charge referral fees to any conveyancer that you subsequently appoint for your conveyancing in Surrey.
My Conveyancer in Surrey is not listed on the Alliance & Leicester Solicitor Panel. Is it possible for me to use my family solicitor notwithstanding that they are not on the Alliance & Leicester panel of approved conveyancing solicitors?
Your options are as follows:
- Complete the purchase with your existing Surrey lawyers but Alliance & Leicester will need to retain a lawyer on their list of acceptable firms. This will result in additional total conveyancing fees and cause frustration.
- Find an alternative lawyer to act in the conveyancing, obviously checking they are Convince your conveyancer to use their best endeavours to join the Alliance & Leicester conveyancing panel
I'm buying my first flat in Surrey with a loan from Barclays Direct. The sellers would not reduce the price so I negotiated £7000 of fixtures and fittings instead. The sale representative advised me not disclose to my conveyancer about this side-deal as it could impact my mortgage with the lender. Do I keep my lawyer in the dark?.
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.
Yesterday I discovered that there is a flying freehold element on a house I have offered on last month in what should have been a straight forward, chain free conveyancing. Surrey is the location of the property. Can you offer any opinion?
Flying freeholds in Surrey are not the norm but are more likely to exist in relation to terraced houses. Even where you use a solicitor outside Surrey you would need to get your solicitor to go through the deeds thoroughly. Your mortgage company may require your conveyancing solicitor to take out an indemnity policy. Some of the more diligent conveyancing solicitors in Surrey may decide that this is not enough and that the deeds be re-written to give you the most up to date legal protection. If so, the next door neighbour also had to sign up to the revised deeds.It is possible that your lender will not accept the situation so the sooner you find out the better. You should also check with your insurance broker as to whether they will insure a flying freehold residence.