My fiance and I are hoping to purchase a flat in Barnstaple and have instructed a Barnstaple conveyancing firm. Within the past 48 hours our conveyancer has forwarded the sale agreement to be signed with a detailed report with the expectation that exchange is imminent. Barclays Direct have this afternoon contacted us to advise us that they have now hit a problem as our Barnstaple lawyer is not on their approved list of lawyers. Is this a problem?
Where you are buying a property requiring a mortgage it is conventional for the purchasers' solicitors to also act for the mortgage company. 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 property lawyer should contact your mortgage company 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 are not legally obliged to appoint a law firm on the bank's conveyancing panel and you may continue to use your own Barnstaple solicitors, in which case it will likely add costs, and it may delay matters as you have another set of people involved.
Would the conveyancing lawyers identified via your search tool handle auction conveyancing in Barnstaple?
We know of a number of auction practitioners we can put you in touch with those who can conduct auction conveyancing. Barnstaple is one of the many areas of in which our lawyers cover.
My property lawyer in Barnstaple has never been on on the The Mortgage Works Solicitor Panel. Can I still continue with my family solicitor notwithstanding that they are not on the The Mortgage Works approved list?
The limited options available to you here include:
- Carry on with your existing Barnstaple lawyers but The Mortgage Works will need to use a solicitor on their list of acceptable firms. This will inevitably rack up the total legal charges and result in frustration.
- Find a new solicitor to to deal with the purchase, not forgetting to check they are Persuade your lawyer to use their best endeavours to join the The Mortgage Works conveyancing panel
I have a renovated Georgian house in Barnstaple. Conveyancing lawyer represented me and Bank of Ireland. I happened to do a free search for it on the Land Registry database and I saw two entries: the first freehold, another for leasehold with the exact same property. Is it worth asking Bank of Ireland to clarify?
You need to assess the Freehold register you have again and check the Charges Register as there may be mention of a lease. The best way to be sure that you are also the registered proprietor of the leasehold and freehold title as well is to check (£3). It is not completely unheard of in Barnstaple and other locations in the country and poses no real issues for owners other than when they buy they have to account for both freehold and leasehold interests when dealing with mortgage companies. You can also enquire as to the situation with the conveyancing lawyer who conducted the conveyancing.
I am buying my first flat in Barnstaple with a mortgage from Nottingham Building Society. The developers would not budge the price so I negotiated five thousand pounds worth of additionals instead. The sale representative suggested that I not inform my conveyancer about this deal as it will jeopardize my mortgage with the bank. Do I keep my lawyer in the dark?.
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.
In my capacity as executor for the estate of my grandfather I am selling a property in Neath but live in Barnstaple. My conveyancer (approximately 235 kilometers from meneeds me to sign a statutory declaration prior to completion. Can you recommend a conveyancing lawyer in Barnstaple to attest and place their company stamp on the document?
Technically speaking you are not likely to need to have the documents attested by a conveyancing solicitor. Ordinarily or notary public or solicitor will be fine regardless of whether they are located in Barnstaple