My mortgage broker has asked me for my East Dulwich law firm’s panel reference for the Nationwide conveyancing panel. Can you suggest how I obtain this. I have called my local East Dulwich office but they have not got back to me yet.
Have you tried contacting your East Dulwich conveyancing practitioner about this?. Most East Dulwich conveyancing firms will retain a file or database of lender panel information which would include, if applicable, their conveyancing panel details for each bank.
I am purchasing a property for cash in East Dulwich. I have been living for the last 20 years in East Dulwich. Conveyancing searches are a lot of money. As I have knowledge of the area and road very well must I have all the conveyancing searches?
Provided that you do not need a mortgage, then almost all of the East Dulwich conveyancing searches are optional. Your conveyancer will 'advise', perhaps strongly, that you should have searches done, but he is duty bound to do this. Do consider; if you are likely to sell the house at a future date, it could be of interest to your future purchaser what the searches determine. There are plenty of instances where houses with functional issues can still throw up unfavourable search results. A good conveyancing solicitor in East Dulwich should be able to give you some constructive advice concerning this.
Why do I have to pay up front for conveyancing in East Dulwich?
If you are buying a property in East Dulwich your solicitor will ask you to provide them with monies to cover the search fees. Ordinarily this is requested to cover the fees of the Local Authority Search. If any deposit is as part of the sale price then this will be asked for shortly before exchange of contracts. The final balance that is due will be payable shortly before completion.
I am helping my sister sell her flat in East Dulwich. Does the conveyancing solicitor arrange an EPC or it is for the seller to see to?
Following the abolition of Home Information Packs, energy performance certificates became a required part of selling a house. An energy assessment needs to be to hand prior to the property being put on the market. It is not a task that law firms normally organise. If you are instructing a East Dulwich conveyancing practitioner they might be willing to arrange energy assessments due to their contacts with long established local providers
We had chosen solicitors locally in East Dulwich on the Santander solicitor approved list. They have just billed me a further fee for the legal aspects of the Santander mortgage. Is this a supplemental conveyancing fee set by Santander?
Unfortunately, so long as it is in their Terms and Conditions or estimate then yes your lawyer is entitled to charge a fee for this. This fee is not set by Santander but by your East Dulwich conveyancing practitioner. Some firms on the Santander panel will quote ’dealing with mortgage’ fee and others do not.
Last month we had a mortgage agreed in principle with Coventry BS. East Dulwich conveyancing practitioners have been selected. How long does it take for Coventry BS to issue the offer to the lawyer?
There is no definitive answer here. Have Coventry BS done the valuation? Have you advised Coventry BS as to your lawyers' details and checked that your lawyers are on the Coventry BS conveyancing panel? It is not unusual for a mortgage offer to take a month to come through.
Over the last few months I have been searching for a flat up to £195,000 and identified one round the corner in East Dulwich I like with open areas and railway links in the vicinity, however it only has 51 years unexpired on the lease. I can't really find anything else in East Dulwich for this price, so just wondered if I would be making a mistake acquiring a short lease?
If you require a home loan that many years will be a potential deal breaker. Reduce the price by the anticipated lease extension will cost if not already taken into account. If the existing owner has owned the property for at least 2 years you could ask them to start the process of the extension and then assign it to you. An additional ninety years can be extended on to the existing lease term and have £0 ground rent by law. You should speak to your conveyancing lawyer about this.
We own a leasehold flat in East Dulwich. Conveyancing was finished in last year. I have been told that I mustn’t let the the remaining lease term to fall too low. Is this right?
East Dulwich domestic long term leases are for a set period - normally just under one hundred years when they commenced. However many flats in East Dulwich were constructed or converted 35 or more years ago and so these leases now have under 80 years remaining. That may seem like plenty of time but Banks, Building Societies and other mortgage companies tend to require leases to have a minimum of 75 years left to be mortgageable. This means that when you come to sell the property you will need to extend the term of your lease if you are nearing seventy five years. To maximise the marketability of your property you should be considering whether or not to extend your lease well in advance of selling the property. There are also strong financial reasons to doing so before the lease reaches even 80 years as when the lease falls below 80 years the premium to be paid to extend starts to increase.