The West Wickham conveyancing solicitors that I appointed last week on my house acquisition in West Wickham have without warning shut down. I chose them because I needed a lawyer on the UBS conveyancing panel and my previous West Wickham lawyer was not. I sent them a cheque for £250 in advance. What should be my next steps?
Assuming that you have an Estate Agent in the equation then inform them straight away so that they can let the sellers know that there may be a slight delay due to the problems encountered. Most sellers would be sympathetic and urge their lawyer to send a new set of papers to your new solicitors. You should appoint new lawyers that are on the UBS conveyancing panel and notify the lender. If you have paid over any money, it will hopefully be held by the SRA as money in an intervened firm's bank accounts is transferred to the SRA. Then, the SRA or the intervention agent looks at the intervened firm's accounts to work out who the money belongs to. To claim your money you will need to contact the SRA. If the SRA cannot return money you are owed from the firm's bank accounts, or if they can only return part of the money, you can apply to the Compensation Fund for a grant. Your new solicitors should be in a position to help.
A colleague recommended that if I am purchasing in West Wickham I should ask my conveyancer to carry out a Neighbourhood, Planning and Local Amenity Search. Can you explain what the purpose of this search is?
This is a search is sometimes quoted for as part of the standard West Wickham conveyancing searches. It is a large document of about 40 pages, listing and detailing important information about West Wickham around the property and the people living there. It includes an Aerial Photograph, Planning Applications, Land Use, Mobile Phone Masts, Rights of Way, the local Housing Market, Council Tax Banding, the demographics of People living in the area, the dominant type of Housing, the Average Property Price, Crime details, Local Education with maps and statistics, Local Amenities and other useful information about West Wickham.
I'm buying a new build house in West Wickham with the aid of help to buy. The builders would not move on the price so I negotiated £7000 of additionals instead. The property agent suggested that I not to tell my solicitor about this side-deal as it could jeopardize my loan with the lender. Is this normal?.
All lenders require a Disclosure of Incentives Form from the builder 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.
What tools are available to search for a West Wickham solicitor on the HSBC Bank conveyancing panel? I drive a motor bike and am prepared to travel upto 20miles to meet the solicitor.
You can use the tool on this website. Please choose the bank and your location and you will see a number of West Wickham conveyancing lawyers located nearest you. We have detailed some West Wickham conveyancing firms at the bottom of this page and you can ring them to verify whether they are on the HSBC Bank approved list
In my capacity as executor for the will of my grandfather I am selling a property in Cardiff but live in West Wickham. My lawyer (based 300 kilometers awayneeds me to sign a statutory declaration ahead of completion. Can you recommend a conveyancing lawyer in West Wickham to attest this legal document for me?
strictly speaking you should not be required to have the documents witnessed by a conveyancing solicitor. Ordinarily any notary public or solicitor will be fine regardless of whether they are West Wickham based
I yesterday become aware that one of the partners of the solicitors undertaking the purchase conveyancing in West Wickham is a relative of the vendor. Is this acceptable?
Provided no conflict arises this is allowable. If you are needing a home loan then the lender may have a say as many banks have specific instructions on this. For example for RBS - Direct Line One as of 5/9/2025, the requirements read as follows :