We were just about to exchange contracts for a freehold house in Grasmere. We encountered a snag. The mortgage offer with TSB expires on 30/1/2023 but the owners are putting forward a completion date of 1/2/2023. Can one extend the loan expiry date?
The person best placed to deal with your issue is your conveyancer who will calculate if he or she is better off negotiating with the bank, seller’s lawyers, selling agents or indeed all parties given the history of your transaction as of today.
I have paid off my mortgage with Yorkshire BS. I assume I don't need a Grasmere conveyancing practitioner on the Yorkshire BS panel to remove the mortgage at the Land Registry. Please confirm.
If you have finished paying off your Yorkshire BS mortgage, they may send you evidence showing that you have paid it off. Alternatively they may notify the Land Registry directly. The Land Registry need to see this evidence before they will remove the Yorkshire BS mortgage from the register. Yorkshire BS, and any evidence they send you, will determine the action you need to take. In cases where no conveyancer is acting for you and you have paid off your mortgage:
- but are not moving to another property
- where Yorkshire BS has sent the Land Registry the discharge electronically, and
- Yorkshire BS has instructed the Land Registry to do so
Intending to buy a house in Grasmere. I have received an online quote from a licenced conveyancer, which states: "There will be no charge for dealing with the Building Society if you are obtaining a mortgage". I take this to mean that there will be no additional fee if the solicitor is on the Principality conveyancing panel. I wanted to make sure it means there will be no additional fees for dealing with the mortgage.
They are simply saying that the cost for acting for the lender is included in the fee being quoted. It is worth you checking that the Grasmere solicitor is on the Principality conveyancing panel.
Having read lots 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 Grasmere solicitor - who is on the Clydesdale conveyancing panel - on this she said they don't do this and I need to contract an independent surveyor. Is that normal?
Clydesdale will need an independent valuation of the property. Your lawyer will not arrange this. Usually Clydesdale 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 Grasmere 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 require fast conveyancing in Grasmere as I am under pressure to complete inside one month. Thankfully I do not require a mortgage. Is it possible to avoid the conveyancing searches to save money and time?
As you are not taking a mortgage you have the choice not to do searches although no conveyancer would suggest that you don't. Drawing on our experience of conveyancing in Grasmere the following are examples of what can be revealed and therefore impact future mortgageability: Enforcement Notices, Overdue Fees, Overdue Grants, Road Schemes,...
Am I right to be suspicious by brokers that I am dealing with are suggesting a nationwide conveyancing firm rather than a High Street Grasmere conveyancing firm?
As with many professional services, often recommendations from connections can be extremely useful or valuable. Nevertheless there are many parties with a vested interest in a conveyancing transaction; estate agents, financial adviser and banks might all suggest conveyancers to use. Sometimes the lawyers might be known to one of the organisations as one of the best in their field, but occasionally there behind the scenes commercial relationship behind the endorsement. You have the right to appoint your own lawyer. However, bear in mind that the majority of mortgage providers have an approved list of solicitors you must use for the lender related work in your house move.
Can you provide any advice for leasehold conveyancing in Grasmere with the aim of speeding up the sale process?
- A significant proportion of the frustration in leasehold conveyancing in Grasmere can be reduced where you instruct lawyers as soon as you market your property and request that they start to put together the leasehold information which will be required by the purchasers’ representatives. If you have had any disputes with your landlord or managing agents it is very important that these are settled before the property is marketed. The buyers and their solicitors will be reluctant to purchase a property where there is a current dispute. You will have to accept that you will have to discharge any arrears of service charge or settle the dispute prior to the buyers completing the purchase. It is therefore preferable to have any dispute settled ahead of the contract papers being issued to the buyers’ solicitors. You will still have to reveal particulars of the dispute to the buyers, but it is clearly preferable to present the dispute as over rather than unsettled. If you hold a share in a the freehold, you should ensure that you are holding the original share document. Arranging a duplicate share certificate is often a time consuming formality and delays many a Grasmere home move. Where a duplicate share certificate is necessary, you should approach the company officers or managing agents (where relevant) for this sooner rather than later. A minority of Grasmere leases require Licence to Assign from the landlord. If this applies to your lease, you should place the estate agents on notice to make sure that the purchasers put in hand bank and professional references. The bank reference should make it clear that the buyer is able to meet the yearly service charge and the actual amount of the service charge should be quoted in the bank’s letter. You will therefore need to provide your estate agents with the actual amount of the service charge so that they can pass this information on to the purchasers or their lawyers. You may think that you are aware of the number of years left on your lease but it would be wise to verify this via your lawyers. A purchaser's lawyer will not be happy to advise their client to proceed with the purchase of a leasehold property the lease term is less than 80 years. It is therefore important at an as soon as possible that you identify whether the lease requires a lease extension. If it does, contact your solicitors before you put your premises on the market for sale.
Grasmere Leasehold Conveyancing - A selection of Queries before buying
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What is the name of the managing agents? Most Grasmere leasehold flats will have a service charge for maintenance of the building levied on behalf of the landlord. Should you buy the property you will have to meet this contribution, normally periodically throughout the year. This could be anything from a couple of hundred pounds to thousands of pounds for bigger purpose-built blocks. In all likelihood there will be a ground rent to be met annual, ordinarily this is not a exorbitant amount, say around £25-£75 but you need to check as on occasion it can be many hundreds of pounds. The prefered form of lease structure is a share of the freehold. In this scenario the leaseholders benefit from control and notwithstanding that a managing agent is often employed where it is larger than a house conversion, the managing agent retained by the leaseholders.
Our conveyancer in Grasmere has uncovered a defect with the lease for the apartment we are buying in Grasmere. The seller’s lawyers have put forward defective title insurance as a solution. We are happy with insurance and will pay for it. Our lawyer says that as he is on the bank conveyancing panel he must check that the lender is happy with this solution. Are we the client or is the bank?
The short answer to your last question is that, notwithstanding the potential for a conflict of interest, you and the bank are the client. A precondition to being on the mortgage company approved panel is to comply with the UK Finance Lenders’ Handbook requirements. The UK Finance Lenders’ Handbook conditions require your lawyer to disclose issues such as defects will the lease so that the bank can be afforded the opportunity to check with their valuer as to the extent that the value of the property is affected . Should you refuse to allow your lawyer to make the appropriate notification then your lawyer will have no choice but to discontinue acting for you.