Having sold my house in Victoria last June yet the purchaser is SMS messaging every few hours to moan that her lawyer needs to hear from mylawyer. What are the post completion sale formalities now that I have sold?
Following your sale your solicitor should deliver the transfer deeds and all of the paperwork to the buyer’s solicitors. If applicable, your conveyancer should also send confirmation that the home loan has been repaid to the buyers solicitors. There are no post completion procedures unique to conveyancing in Victoria.
I am buying a garden flat in Victoria. How practical is it for me to do the conveyancing?
Leaving aside the complexities and merits of DIY conveyancing in Victoria you will have to appoint a solicitor on your bank's conveyancing panel to look after their interests. Most people therefore find it easier to let the solicitor act for them and the lender. Furthermore there is minimal cost savings to be made in you doing conveyancing for yourself and another lawyer conducting the conveyancing for the lender. Please feel free to use the search tool to find a lawyer on your lender panel in Victoria.
I have been told that property searches are the number one cause of stalling in Victoria house deals. Is that correct?
The Council of Property Search Organisations (CoPSO) released findings of a review by MoveWithUs that conveyancing searches do not figure amongst the top 10 causes of hindrances during the legal transfer of property. Local searches are unlikely to be the root cause of holding up conveyancing in Victoria.
I have recentlybeen informed that Action Conveyancing have been shut down. They carried out my conveyancing in Victoria for a purchase of a leasehold flat 10 months ago. How can I be sure that my home is registered correctly in the name of the previous owner?
The easiest method to check if the premises is registered to you, you can make a search of the land registry (£3.00). You can either do this yourself or ask a law firm to do this for you. If you are not registered you can seek help from one of a number of Victoria conveyancing specialists.
My wife and I purchased a leasehold flat in Victoria. Conveyancing and Clydesdale mortgage are in place. A letter has just been received from someone saying they have taken over the reversionary interest in the property. Attached was a demand for arrears of ground rent dating back to 1993. The conveyancing solicitor in Victoria who acted for me is not around. Do I pay?
The first thing you should do is make enquiries of HMLR to make sure that this person is indeed the new freeholder. You do not need to incur the fees of a Victoria conveyancing solicitor to do this as you can do this on the Land Registry website for £3. Rest assured that regardless, even if this is the rightful freeholder, under the Limitation Act 1980 no more than 6 years of rent can be collected.
I am the leaseholder of a ground floor flat in Victoria. In the absence of agreement between myself and the landlord, can the Leasehold valuation Tribunal determine the sum payable for the purchase of the freehold?
if there is a missing freeholder or if there is dispute about the premium for a lease extension, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can apply to the LVT to arrive at the sum to be paid.
An example of a Lease Extension matter before the tribunal for a Victoria property is Flats 12A & 19, Evelyn Mansions Carlisle Place in June 2009. The Tribunal held that the price to be paid for the new lease of Flat 12A is £168,824, For the other flat the price was set at £169,110 This case affected 2 flats. The remaining number of years on the lease was 56 years.
My partner and I are buying a first floor flat in Victoria. At the point of instructing our lawyer, they assured us that they were on all major UK bank panels. The mortgage broker called yesterday to advise that they don't seem to be on the RBS approved list. Should that be true, what should we do? Do we just find a new solicitor that is on their approved list or should we cover the costs for dual representation, with RBS appointing their own approved conveyancing practitioner.
Where you are buying a property with the assistance of a mortgage it is usual for the purchaser’s solicitors to also act for the mortgage company. In order to act for a bank or building society a property lawyer has to be on that lender's list of approved lawyers. An application has to be made by the lawyer to the lender to become a member of the lender's panel and there are increasingly strict criteria which the property lawyer has to satisfy. Some mortgage companies now require their panel firms to be part of the Law Society’s Conveyancing Quality Scheme. Your lawyer should contact RBS to discover 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 don't have to instruct a firm on RBS's conveyancing panel and you may continue to use your own Victoria solicitors, in which case your legal fees may increase, and it may delay matters as you have another set of people involved.