As a novice what is the most important number one tip you can give me regarding purchase conveyancing in Duston?
You may not hear this from too many lawyers but conveyancing in Duston or throughout Northamptonshire is often a confrontational process. In other words, when it comes to conveyancing there exists plenty of opportunity for confrontation between you and other parties involved in the legal transfer of property. For example, the vendor, property agent and on occasion your mortgage company. Appointing a lawyer for your conveyancing in Duston should not be taken lightly as your conveyancer is your adviser, and is the ONE person in the transaction whose role it is to act in your best interests and to keep you safe.
We are witnessing a definite ongoing adversarial element to conveyancing- someone has to be at fault for the process being so protracted. We recommend that you your first instinct should be to trust your conveyancer ahead of the other players when it comes to the legal assignment of property.
My apartment in Duston is up for sale and I have a buyer. Does the property lawyer have to be required to be on the Skipton conveyancing panel in order to deal with the discharge of my mortgage?
Ordinarily, even if your lawyer is not on the Skipton 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.
After months of negotiation I have agreed a price on an apartment in Duston. My mortgage broker recommended their conveyancers. I paid an upfront payment of £175. A couple of days later, the conveyancer called me sheepishly admitting 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.
I had an offer accepted on an apartment in Duston on 27/6/2025, valuation was booked 3 days after, received a clean bill of health. Solicitor retained, so all that was missing was my mortgage offer. Having made daily calls to UBS and chasing them on my offer, I have now been told that my offer will not be issued unless the lawyer is on the UBS conveyancing panel. Are UBS entitled to hold back the Mortgage pending the lawyer being on the approved list?
A lender would not issue a mortgage until they have details of a lawyer on their panel. It can take a few weeks for UBS to deal with your lawyer's application to be on the UBS conveyancing panel. There's no guarantee that your solicitor will be accepted.
Having digested plenty of house buying guides, I note that they all recommend that you should get your house surveyed prior to buying it. When I asked my local Duston solicitor - who is on the RBS conveyancing panel - on this she said they don't do this and I need to contract an independent surveyor. is that correct?
RBS will need an independent valuation of the property. Your lawyer will not arrange this. Usually RBS 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 Duston 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.
I moved into my house on 6 January and my personal details are still not registered. Any reason for this? My conveyancing solicitor in Duston said it should be concluded in a couple of weeks. Are properties in Duston particularly slow to register?
There is nothing unique about conveyancing in Duston registration formalities. Rather than based on location, timeframes can adjust subject to who lodges the application, whether it is in order and if the Land registry must send notices to any other parties. At present in the region of three quarters of such applications are completed in less than three weeks but some can be subject to extensive hold-ups. Registration occurs after the buyer has moved in to the premises thus an expedited registration is not always an essential issue but if it is urgent that the the registration takes place urgently then you or your solicitor must speak with the land registry and explain the circumstances.
I have been on the look out for a leasehold apartment up to £305k and found one round the corner in Duston I like with open areas and station nearby, the downside is that it only has 61 remaining years left on the lease. I can't really find anything else in Duston for this price, so just wondered if I would be making a grave error buying a lease with such few years left?
Should you need a home loan the shortness of the lease will be a potential deal breaker. Discount the price by the anticipated lease extension will cost if not already taken into account. If the existing proprietor has owned the property for a minimum of twenty four months you could request that they commence the lease extension formalities and then assign it to you. You can add 90 years to the existing lease term with a zero ground rent applied. You should consult your conveyancing solicitor about this matter.
I am thinking of appointing an online solicitor ahead of a Duston conveyancing practice. Should I ‘stay local’?
There are advantages of being able to pop in to a local Duston conveyancing solicitor for instance
- signing documents on short notice
- often being able to speak to someone face-to-face can make a huge difference, particularly for non-standard house moves
- the ability to raise concerns if things need to addressed
When checking estimates, look out for hidden extras. The majority decent Duston high street solicitors give an all-inclusive price. Many online agents appear to offer discounted fees, but have burried 'extras' in the fine print.