My husband and I are planning to acquire a property in North London and have appointed a North London conveyancing firm. Within the last couple of days our conveyancer has sent a preliminary report and documents to look through with a view to exchanging next week. Lloyds TSB Bank have this afternoon contacted us to advise us that they have now hit a problem as our North London conveyancer is not on their conveyancing panel. Is this a problem?
If you are buying a property needing a mortgage it is normal for the purchasers' solicitors to also act for the purchaser's lender. 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 bank 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 don't have to instruct a firm on the lender’s conveyancing panel and you may continue to use your own North London solicitors, in which case it will likely add costs, and it will likely delay the transaction as you have another set of people involved.
Finally the sale completed on my house in North London last June but our buyer keeps e-mailing every few hours to moan that his solicitor is waiting to hear from mine. What are the post completion sale formalities now that I have sold?
Following your house sale your lawyer is committed to send the transfer deeds and all additional paperwork to the purchaser's lawyers. Where appropriate, your conveyancer must also evidence that the legal charge in favour of the lender has been repaid to the purchasers solicitors. There are no post completion procedures peculiar conveyancing in North London.
When it comes to lenders such as Kent Reliance, do North London lawyers face a yearly amount to be on the list of approved solicitors?
We are not aware of any mortgage company fees to register on their list of approved firms, although some do charge an administration charge to deal with the processing of the conveyancing panel application.
We previously selected conveyancing lawyers based in North London on the Nationwide solicitor panel. They are now charging me a supplemental amount for handling the Nationwide mortgage. Is this a supplemental conveyancing fee specified by Nationwide?
Unfortunately, as long as it is in their Terms and Conditions or Quote then yes your conveyancing practitioner can charge a fee for this. The fee is not set by Nationwide but by your North London solicitor. Numerous firms on the Nationwide panel will levy an ‘acting for lender’ fee but many practices incorporate it on their overall fee.
My partner and I have arranged the release of further funds on our mortgage from Nationwide as we want to conduct a loft conversion to our house in North London. Are we obliged to appoint a high street North London solicitor on the Nationwide conveyancing panel to handle the legals?
Nationwide don't usually appoint firms on their approved list of lawyers to handle the formalities. If they do require any legal work then you would need to ensure that such a lawyer was on the Nationwide list.
My relative suggested that if I am purchasing in North London I should carry out a Neighbourhood, Planning and Local Amenity Search. What does it cover?
This is a search is usually included in the estimate for your North London conveyancing searches. It is not a small report of about 40 pages, listing and setting out important information about North London around the property and the people living there. It includes an Aerial Photograph, Planning Applications, Land Use, Mobile Phone Masts, Rights of Way, the North London Housing Market, Council Tax Banding, the type of People living in the area, the dominant type of Housing, the Average House Prices, Crime statistics, North London Education with maps and statistics, Local Amenities and other useful data concerning North London.
I'm purchasing my first flat in North London with the aid of help to buy. The sellers refused to move on the price so I negotiated £7000 of extras instead. The property agent told me not disclose to my conveyancer about the side-deal as it may impact my loan with the lender. Is this normal?.
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.
I was recommended by numerous selling agents in North London to find a conveyancer on your site. Is there a financial inducement for Estate Agents to market your lawyers rather than another?
We refuse to offer any referral fee for sending work our way. We thought it would be too underhand to pay a commission as a client could think, ‘Why is the agent getting a kickback? Why aren’t I getting any benefit too?’ We would prefer to grow our business on genuine recommendations.