My fiance and I are planning to acquire a home in Alsager and have instructed a Alsager conveyancing practice. Within the past 48 hours our property lawyer has sent a preliminary report and documents to look through in anticipation of exchanging contracts shortly. Birmingham Midshires have this morning contacted us to inform me that they have now hit a problem as our Alsager solicitor is not on their approved list of lawyers. Is this a problem?
If you are buying a property with the assistance of a mortgage it is usual for the purchasers' solicitors to also represent 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 Quality Scheme. Your property lawyer should contact your lender 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 don't have to instruct a firm on the bank's conveyancing panel and you may continue to use your own Alsager solicitors, in which case it will likely add costs, and it may delay matters as you are adding another lawyer into the mix.
We see that you have a search directory identifying solicitors on the Clydesdale conveyancing panel. Do firms pay you a commission if I retain them for our own conveyancing in Alsager?
We are a listing service only for law firms wishing to communicate if they are on the Clydesdale conveyancing panel or other lender panels. We do not charge referral fees to any conveyancer that you subsequently appoint for your conveyancing in Alsager.
The Alsager conveyancing solicitors that I recently instructed on my purchase in Alsager have suddenly shut down. They were on acting for me because I had to have a solicitor on the Nottingham conveyancing panel and my family Alsager lawyer was not. I sent them a cheque for £250 in advance. What are my options?
If you have an estate agent involved then inform them immediately so that they advise the vendors that there may be a slight delay due to reasons beyond your control. Hopefully they will 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 Nottingham 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 may be able to assist.
It has been three months following my purchase conveyancing in Alsager concluded. I have checked the Land Registry website which shows that I paid £150,000 when infact I paid £180,000. Why the discrepancy?
The price paid figure is taken from the application to register the purchase. It is the figure included in the Transfer (the legal deed which transfers the asset from one person to the other) and referred to as the 'consideration' or purchase price. You can report an error in the price paid figure using the LR online form. In most cases errors result from typos so at first glance the figure. Do report it so they can double check and advise.
I opted to have a survey completed on a property in Alsager in advance of appointing lawyers. I have been informed that there is a flying freehold element to the house. The surveyor has said that some banks may refuse to give a mortgage on a flying freehold property.
It depends who your proposed lender is. Bank of Scotland has different requirements from Birmingham Midshires. If you e-mail us we can check via the relevant mortgage company. If you lender is happy to lend one our lawyers can help as they are used to dealing with flying freeholds in Alsager. Conveyancing will be smoother if you use a solicitor in Alsager especially if they are familiar with such properties in Alsager.
My partner and I may need to rent out our Alsager ground floor flat temporarily due to a career opportunity. We used a Alsager conveyancing firm in 2002 but they have since shut and we did not think at the time get any advice as to whether the lease prohibits the subletting of the flat. How do we find out?
Notwithstanding that your previous Alsager conveyancing lawyer is not around you can review your lease to see if it allows you to sublet the premises. The accepted inference is that if the deeds are non-specific, subletting is permitted. Quite often there is a prerequisite that you are obliged to obtain consent from your landlord or some other party prior to subletting. The net result is you not allowed to sublet in the absence of prior consent. Such consent is not allowed to be unreasonably turned down. If your lease prohibits you from letting out the property you should ask your landlord for their consent.
Alsager Leasehold Conveyancing - Examples of Queries Prior to buying
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How many years are left on the lease? Are there any major works in the planning that could increase the maintenance costs? In the main the cost for major works are not built into the service charges, albeit that a few managing agents in Alsager ask leaseholders to pay into a reserve fund and this is used to offset against major works.