My husband and I are looking to purchase a flat in Birmingham and have instructed a Birmingham conveyancing practice. Within the past 48 hours our lawyer has sent a preliminary report and documents to look through with a view to exchanging next week. Santander have this afternoon contacted us to inform me that they have now hit a problem as our Birmingham conveyancer is not on their approved list of lawyers. What do we do from here?
If you are buying a property with the assistance of a mortgage it is usual for the purchasers' lawyers to also represent 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 solicitor 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 are not legally obliged to appoint a law firm on the bank's conveyancing panel as you are at liberty to use your preferred Birmingham lawyers, in which case your legal fees may increase, and it will likely delay the transaction as you are adding another lawyer into the mix.
My husband and I are purchasing a newly constructed flat in Birmingham and my solicitor is telling me that she is duty bound to the lender to disclose incentives from the builder. I am nearing the developer’s deadline to exchange and I don't want to prolong deal. Is my lawyer right?
You should not exchange unless you have been advised to do so by your lawyer. A precondition to being on a bank panel is to comply with the UK Finance Lenders’ Handbook provisions. The CML Conveyancing Handbook requires that your lawyer have the appropriate Disclosure of Incentive form completed by the developer and accepted by your lender.
I am helping my sister sell her house in Birmingham. Does the solicitor arrange an EPC or it is for the owner to see to?
Following the abolition of HIPs, energy assessments remained a mandatory element of moving property. An energy performance certificate should be commissioned before the property is put on the market. This is not as aspect of the sale process that lawyers normally organise. Where you are using a Birmingham conveyancing lawyer they may be able to arrange energy performance certificates given their relationships with long established Birmingham energy assessors
I recently had an offer agreed on an apartment in Birmingham. My financial adviser pressured me to appoint their lawyer. I paid an upfront payment of £225. A few days later, the solicitor called me embarrassingly acknowledging that they were not on the UBS conveyancing panel. Am I right in thinking that I should be due a refund?
You should be able to recover this from the law firm if they were not on the UBS panel. They should have asked at the outset which lender you were obtaining a mortgage with. An important lesson to readers of this site is to check that the lawyers are on the appropriate lender panel.
After shopping around on the internet I have found a Birmingham property lawyer having made sure that they are on the Virgin Money conveyancing panel. Does my lawyer arrange the survey of the property?
Virgin Money will need an independent valuation of the property. Your lawyer will not arrange this. Usually Virgin Money will appoint their own surveyor to do this, and you will have to pay for it. Remember that this is a valuation for mortgage purposes and not a survey. You may wish to consider appointing your own Birmingham surveyor to carry out a survey or prepare a home buyers report on the property. It is up to you to satisfy yourself that the property is structurally sound before you buy it. If the survey or report reveals that building work is needed, you should tell your solicitor. You may wish to renegotiate with the seller.
The deeds to my house are lost. The conveyancers who handled the conveyancing in Birmingham 4 years ago have long since closed. What are my options?
You no longer need to have the physical deeds to establish that you are the registered proprietor of land or property, given that the Land Registry have everything they need in a digital format.
I'm buying my first flat in Birmingham with a loan from Halifax. The builders would not move on the amount so I negotiated 6k of additionals instead. The sale representative suggested that I not to tell my conveyancer about the extras as it will adversely affect my loan with the bank. Should I keep quiet?.
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've recently found out that there is a flying freehold issue on a house I have offered on last month in what was supposed to be a straight forward, no chain conveyancing. Birmingham is where the house is located. Can you shed any light on this issue?
Flying freeholds in Birmingham are not the norm but are more likely to exist in relation to terraced houses. Even where you use a solicitor outside Birmingham you must be sure that your lawyer goes through the deeds diligently. Your lender may require your conveyancing solicitor to take out an indemnity policy. Some of the more diligent conveyancing solicitors in Birmingham may decide that this is not enough and that the deeds be re-written to give you the most up to date legal protection. If so, the next door neighbour also had to sign up to the revised deeds.It is possible that your lender will not accept the situation so the sooner you find out the better. You should also check with your insurance broker as to whether they will insure a flying freehold residence.