My wife and I are refinancing our penthouse in Hoole with Principality. We have a son 19 who lives at home. Our solicitor has asked us to disclose anyone over the age of 17 other than ourselves who reside at the property. Our lawyer has now e-mailed a document for our son to sign, waiving any legal rights in the event that the apartment is forfeited by the lender. I have a couple of questions (1) Is this form unique to the Principality conveyancing panel as he never had to sign this form when we purchased 3 years ago (2) In signing this form is our son in any way compromising his right to inherit the property?
On the face of it your lawyer has done nothing wrong as it is established procedure for any occupier who is aged 17 or over to sign the necessary Consent Form, which is purely to state that any rights he has in the property are postponed and secondary to Principality. This is solely used to protect Principality if the property were re-possessed so that in such circumstances, your son would be legally obliged to leave. It does not impact your son’s right to inherit the apartment. Please note that if your son were to inherit and the mortgage in favour of Principality had not been discharged, he would be liable to take over the loan or pay it off, but other than that, there is nothing stopping him from keeping the property in accordance with your will or the rules of intestacy.
Is there a reason why leasehold purchase conveyancing in Hoole costs more?
Hoole leasehold conveyancing transactions usually involve additional investigations than freeholds including investigating the Lease, liaising with the Landlord such as serving relevant notices on the Landlord or managing agent, obtaining up-to-date service charge and management information, obtaining Landlord’s consents and reviewing management accounts and formation documents.
The Hoole conveyancing lawyers that I appointed last week on my purchase in Hoole have suddenly closed. I chose them because I needed a solicitor on the HSBC conveyancing panel and my previous Hoole lawyer was not. I paid them funds on account. What should be my next steps?
If you have an estate agent involved then inform them immediately so that they advise the vendors that there may be a slight delay due to reasons beyond your control. Hopefully they will be sympathetic and urge their lawyer to send a new set of papers to your new solicitors. You should appoint new lawyers that are on the HSBC conveyancing panel and notify the lender. If you have paid over any money, it will hopefully be held by the SRA as money in an intervened firm's bank accounts is transferred to the SRA. Then, the SRA or the intervention agent looks at the intervened firm's accounts to work out who the money belongs to. To claim your money you will need to contact the SRA. If the SRA cannot return money you are owed from the firm's bank accounts, or if they can only return part of the money, you can apply to the Compensation Fund for a grant. Your new solicitors should be in a position to help.
It has been 4 months following my purchase conveyancing in Hoole took place. I have checked the Land Registry site which shows that I paid £150,000 when infact I paid £170,000. Why the discrepancy?
The price paid figure is taken from the application to register the purchase. It is the figure included in the Transfer (the legal deed which transfers the asset from one person to the other) and referred to as the 'consideration' or purchase price. You can report an error in the price paid figure using the LR online form. In most cases errors result from typos so at first glance the figure. Do report it so they can double check and advise.
Due to the input of my in-laws I had a survey completed on a house in Hoole before instructing conveyancers. I have been advised that there is a flying freehold aspect to the property. Our surveyor has said that some banks tend not issue a loan on a flying freehold premises.
It depends who your proposed lender is. Santander has different requirements from Birmingham Midshires. Should you wish to call us we can check via the relevant mortgage company. If you lender is happy to lend one our lawyers can help as they are used to dealing with flying freeholds in Hoole. Conveyancing may be slightly more expensive based on your lender's requirements.
I've recently bought a leasehold house in Hoole. Do I have any liability for service charges relating to a period prior to completion of my purchase?
Where the service charge has already been demanded from the previous lessee and they have not paid you would not usually be personally liable for the arrears. However, your landlord may still be able to take action to forfeit the lease. A critical element of leasehold conveyancing for your conveyancer to ensure to have an up to date clear service charge receipt before completion of your purchase. If you have a mortgage this is likely to be a requirement of your lender.
If you purchase part way through an accounting year you may be liable for charges not yet demanded even if they relate to a period prior to your purchase. In such circumstances your conveyancer would normally arrange for the seller to set aside some money to cover their part of the period (usually called a service charge retention).
I inherited a leasehold flat in Hoole, conveyancing having been completed half a dozen years ago. Can you please calculate a probable premium for a statutory lease extension? Corresponding properties in Hoole with an extended lease are worth £165,000. The average or mid-range amount of ground rent is £50 levied per year. The lease terminates on 21st October 2103
With only 77 years left to run we estimate the price of your lease extension to range between £7,600 and £8,800 plus costs.
The figure that we have given is a general guide to costs for extending a lease, but we are not able to provide a more accurate figure in the absence of detailed due diligence. Do not use the figures in a Notice of Claim or as an informal offer. There are no doubt additional issues that need to be considered and clearly you want to be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. You should not take any other action based on this information before getting professional advice.