My wife and I are refinancing our maisonette in Alnmouth with Santander. We have a son 19 who lives with us. Our solicitor requested us to identify anyone over the age of 17 other than ourselves who reside at the property. Our lawyer has now e-mailed a document for our son to sign, waiving any legal rights in the event that the property is forfeited by the lender. I have two questions (1) Is this document specific to the Santander conveyancing panel as he did not need to sign this form when we bought 4 years ago (2) Does our son by signing this compromise his entitlement to inherit the property?
On the face of it your lawyer has done nothing wrong as it is established procedure for any occupier who is aged 17 or over to sign the necessary Consent Form, which is purely to state that any rights he has in the property are postponed and secondary to Santander. This is solely used to protect Santander if the property were re-possessed so that in such circumstances, your son would be legally obliged to leave. It does not impact your son’s right to inherit the apartment. Please note that if your son were to inherit and the mortgage in favour of Santander had not been discharged, he would be liable to take over the loan or pay it off, but other than that, there is nothing stopping him from keeping the property in accordance with your will or the rules of intestacy.
Do all mortgage companies provide you with an approved list of Alnmouth conveyancing solicitors? How do you know who is on the Coventry BS conveyancing panel?
Alnmouth conveyancing firms themselves provide us confirmation that they are on the Coventry BS conveyancing panel as opposed to being supplied with a list from Coventry BS directly.
We are selling our flat in Alnmouth. Will my solicitor need to be required to be on the Clydesdale conveyancing panel in order to deal with the discharge of my mortgage?
Ordinarily, even if your lawyer is not on the Clydesdale conveyancing panel they can still act for you on your sale. It might be that the lender will not release the original deeds (if applicable and increasingly irrelevant) until after the mortgage is paid off. You should speak to your lawyer directly before you start the process though to ensure that there is no problem as lenders are changing their requirements fairly frequently currently.
is it true that all Alnmouth solicitor firms on the Leeds Building Society conveyancing panel are governed by the Solicitors Regulatory Authority?
As a firm of solicitors, in order to be on the Leeds Building Society approved list of solicitors they would need to be regulated by the Solicitors Regulatory Authority. Some lenders do list licenced conveyancers on their panel and in that case the practice would be overseen by the CLC.
I have today made my last payment due on my mortgage with Leeds Building Society. I assume I don't need a Alnmouth conveyancing practitioner on the Leeds Building Society panel to discharge the mortgage at the Land Registry. Am I right?
If you have finished paying off your Leeds Building Society mortgage, they may send you evidence showing that you have paid it off. Alternatively they may notify the Land Registry directly. The Land Registry need to see this evidence before they will remove the Leeds Building Society mortgage from the register. Leeds Building Society, and any evidence they send you, will determine the action you need to take. In cases where no conveyancer is acting for you and you have paid off your mortgage:
- but are not moving to another property
- where Leeds Building Society has sent the Land Registry the discharge electronically, and
- Leeds Building Society has instructed the Land Registry to do so
The formalities of my remortgage has taken place for my property in Alnmouth. Conveyancing was a necessary evil but I would like to complain about the lender. How do I make a complaint?
Almost all lenders have complaints procedures. Your first port of call should be one of the lender’s branches or the Customer Services Department at head office. Ordinarily complaints to a lender are resolved very quickly. However if you are not satisfied that the matter is not resolved you can write to Financial Ombudsman Service who will take matters further.
I understand that there are debates on Chancel Insurance on online forums. Am I compelled to have this when purchasing a property in Alnmouth? or I am told that there is an ancient law that means some homeowners residing in a parish church boundary may be liable to pay for repairs to the chancel within the church. Is this appropriate for conveyancing in Alnmouth?
Unless a previous purchase of the property took place post 12 October 2013 you can assume that conveyancing practitioners conducting conveyancing in Alnmouth to remain recommending a chancel search and or insurance against a claim.
I have todayfound out that Arc property Solicitors have been shut down. They carried out my conveyancing in Alnmouth for a purchase of a leasehold flat 10 months ago. How can I establish that the property is not still registered in the name of the former proprietor?
The quickest method to check if the premises is registered to you, you can carry out 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 Alnmouth conveyancing specialists.