My wife and I are planning to purchase a house in Tamworth and are in fact using a Tamworth conveyancing firm. Within the past 48 hours our conveyancer has sent a preliminary report and documents to look through with the expectation that exchange is imminent. Britannia have this morning contacted us to advise us that there is now an issue as our Tamworth lawyer is not on their conveyancing panel. Is this a problem?
If you are buying a property requiring 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 solicitor should contact your mortgage company and see if they can apply for membership of their conveyancing panel, but if that is not viable they will instruct their own solicitors to act. You are not legally obliged to appoint a law firm on the bank's conveyancing panel and you may continue to use your own Tamworth solicitors, in which case it will likely add costs, and it will likely delay the transaction as you are adding another lawyer into the mix.
My wife and I are soon to complete buying a property in Tamworth but as a consequence of damage from the recent storms I have was able negotiate compensation from the current proprietors in the sum of £3k by way of a deduction in the price. I had intended this to be addressed as part of amending the contract but Yorkshire BS are not allowing this. Should they have been notified?
Any solicitor being on a Yorkshire BS approved list is required to advise Yorkshire BS of any variations to the sale price. If you were to refuse your conveyancing practitioner to report the reduction to Yorkshire BS then they would have to discontinue acting for you. In addition, Yorkshire BS and you would have to appoint a new property lawyer for your conveyancing in Tamworth.
Finally the sale completed on my house in Tamworth last March yet the purchaser is calling daily to moan that her solicitor needs to hear from mysolicitor. What are the post completion sale legalities following completion?
Following your disposal your lawyer is duty bound to send the transfer deeds and all of the paperwork to the buyer’s solicitors. Depending on the transaction, your conveyancer must also evidence that the home loan has been paid off to the buyers lawyers. There is unlikely to be post completion procedures unique to conveyancing in Tamworth.
A friend recommended that if I am purchasing in Tamworth I should carry out a Neighbourhood, Planning and Local Amenity Search. Can you explain what the purpose of this search is?
A search of this type is usually included in the estimate for your Tamworth conveyancing searches. It is not a small report of about 40 pages, listing and detailing significant information about Tamworth around the property and the people living there. It incorporates an Aerial Photograph, Planning Applications, Land Use, Mobile Phone Masts, Rights of Way, the Tamworth Housing Market, Council Tax Banding, the demographics of People living in the area, the dominant type of Housing, the Average House Prices, Crime details, Tamworth Education with maps and statistics, Local Amenities and other useful data about Tamworth.
I am looking at a two flats in Tamworth both have about forty five years unexpired on the leases. Will this present a problem?
There are no two ways about it. A leasehold flat in Tamworth is a deteriorating asset as a result of the reducing lease term. The nearer the lease gets to its expiry date, the more it adversely affects the salability of the property. For most purchasers and mortgage companies, leases with less than eighty years become less and less attractive. On a more positive note, leaseholders can extend their leases by serving a Section 42 Notice. One stipulation is that they must have owned the premises for two years (unlike a Section 13 notice for purchasing the freehold, when leaseholders can participate from day one of ownership). When successful, they will have the right to an extension of 90 years to the current term and ground rent is effectively reduced to zero. Before moving forward with a purchase of a property with a short lease term remaining you should talk to a solicitor specialising in lease extensions and leasehold enfranchisement. We are are happy to put you in touch with Tamworth conveyancing experts who will explain the options available to you during an initial telephone conversation free of charge. A more straightforward and quicker method of extending would be to contact your landlord directly and sound him out on the prospect of extending the lease. You may find he or she is happy to negotiate informally and willing to consider your offer straight off, without having to involve anyone else. This will save you time and money and it could help you reach a lower price on the lease. You need to ensure that any new terms represent good long-term value compared with the standard benefits of the Section 42 Notice and that onerous clauses are not inserted into any redrafting of the lease.
I bought a split level flat in Tamworth, conveyancing having been completed August 1997. Can you give me give me an indication of the likely cost of a lease extension? Corresponding properties in Tamworth with an extended lease are worth £260,000. The average or mid-range amount of ground rent is £45 invoiced every year. The lease ends on 21st October 2099
You have 74 years unexpired we estimate the premium for your lease extension to be between £8,600 and £9,800 plus 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 advice on the actual costs without more detailed due diligence. 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 want to be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. You should not move forward based on this information without first getting professional advice.
Been reading online that Tamworth solicitors are more expensive than Tamworth conveyancers in Tamworth when it comes to buying a house. Am I better off using a conveyancer or a solicitor where I am buying a property in Tamworth.
When it comes to conveyancing in Tamworth the costs are unlikely to vary dramatically depending on whether the legal expert is a licenced conveyancer or solicitor.