My husband and I are looking to purchase a home in Hinckley and are in fact using a Hinckley conveyancing practice. Within the past 48 hours our conveyancer has forwarded the sale agreement to be signed with a detailed report in anticipation of exchanging contracts shortly. The Mortgage Works have this afternoon contacted us to inform me that they have now hit a problem as our Hinckley solicitor is not on their approved list of lawyers. What do we do from here?
If you are buying a property requiring a mortgage it is usual for the purchasers' solicitors to also act for the purchaser's lender. 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 Quality Scheme. Your solicitor should contact your bank and see if they can apply for membership of their conveyancing panel, but if that is not viable they will instruct their own lawyers to represent them. You don't have to instruct a firm on the bank's conveyancing panel and you may continue to use your own Hinckley solicitors, in which case it will likely add costs, and it may delay matters as you are adding another lawyer into the mix.
The Hinckley conveyancing firm handling our Hinckley conveyancing has identified a discrepancy when comparing the surveyor’s assumptions in the home valuation report and what is in the legal papers for the property. My solicitor informs me that he is obliged to ensure that the bank is OK with this discrepancy and is content to go ahead. Is my conveyancer’s approach right?
Your conveyancer must comply with the UK Finance Lenders’ Handbook requirements which do require that your lawyer disclose any incorrect assumptions in the lender’s valuation report and the legal papers. Should you refuse to allow your lawyer to make the appropriate notification then your lawyer will have no choice but to discontinue acting for both parties.
Will lawyers ask for an advanced payment when it comes to conveyancing in Hinckley?
If you are buying a property in Hinckley your solicitor will ask you place them with monies to cover the the cost of the conveyancing searches. Normally this is needed to cover the fees of the conveyancing searches. When the down payment is as part of the purchase price then this will be asked for shortly prior to contracts are exchanged. The final balance that is needed should be transferred a couple of days ahead of the day of completion.
Do I need to have a meeting at the offices of the solicitor to execute the mortgage deed? If so, I will appoint a lawyer who conducts conveyancing in Hinckley so that I can pop in to their offices if necessary.
Whereas this was necessary twenty years ago, most banks no longer need their conveyancing panel lawyer to witness the mortgagors signature. It will still be necessary for you to provide identification documents and there are still manifest benefits to choosing a locally based solicitor, in your case a conveyancing solicitor in Hinckley.
Are there any apps to assist me to identify a Hinckley law firm on the Accord Mortgages Ltd conveyancing panel? I am a keen cyclist and am prepared to travel upto 25kilometers to meet the solicitor.
Feel free to make use of the search on this page. Please select a bank and your location and you will see a number of Hinckley conveyancing lawyers locally. We have listed some Hinckley conveyancing firms at the bottom of this page and you can call them to verify if they are on the Accord Mortgages Ltd panel
Is there a reason that Hinckley conveyancing costs differ for leasehold and freehold properties?
If acquiring a leasehold property there is more work involved purely due to the fact that usually there are further parties involved in the form of the freeholder and/or Management Agents. As part of a lawyers enquiries they will check that all ground rent and service charges are paid up to date amongst other general leasehold matters. For this reason, the Sellers lawyers usually have to refer to the freeholder or Managing Agent for their replies to our questions. This may be time consuming and beyond the lawyers control