In what way does my ID and proof of funds have anything to do with my conveyancing in Kennington? Why is this being asked of me?
You are right in these requests have nothing to do with conveyancing in Kennington. However these days you can not complete any conveyancing process in the absence supplying proof of your identity. This usually takes the form of a either your passport or driving licence plus a utility bill. Remember if you are providing your driving licence as proof of identification it needs to be both the paper element and photo card part, one is not sufficient without the other.
Verification of the source of funds is required in accordance with the Money Laundering Regulations. Don’t be offended when when this is requested of you as your conveyancer must retain this information on file. Your Kennington conveyancing practitioner will require evidence of proof of funds prior to accepting any money from you into their client account and they should also ask additional questions concerning the origin of monies.
We had selected conveyancing lawyers located in Kennington on the Clydesdale solicitor approved list. They have just billed me a further charge for handling the Clydesdale mortgage. Is this an additional conveyancing fee set by Clydesdale?
Provided it is contained in their Terms and Conditions or Quote then yes your conveyancing practitioner can charge a fee for this. This fee is not set by Clydesdale but by your Kennington conveyancer. Plenty of firms on the Clydesdale panel will levy ’dealing with mortgage’ fee but plenty of firms include it on their overall fee.
I'm at the point of looking at houses in Kennington and I am about to put in an offer. Is it too early to have a solicitor in place? I will be getting a mortgage with UBS.
You should start requesting conveyancing quotes from solicitors ASAP. After you have chosen your lawyer and once your offer is accepted you can instruct them to work for you and pass their details on to the selling agent. As you are obtaining a mortgage with UBS, make sure you remember to check that your lawyer is on the UBS conveyancing panel.
I recently had an offer agreed on an apartment in Kennington. My financial adviser pressured me to appoint their property lawyer. I paid an upfront payment of £225. A few days later, the property lawyer contacted me embarrassingly acknowledging that they were not on the Aldermore 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 Aldermore 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.
My friend suggested that if I am purchasing in Kennington I should carry out a Neighbourhood, Planning and Local Amenity Search. What does it cover?
A search of this type is occasionally quoted for as part of the standard Kennington conveyancing searches. It is not a small report of about 40 pages, listing and detailing important information about Kennington around the property and the people living there. It includes an Aerial Photograph, Planning Applications, Land Use, Mobile Phone Masts, Rights of Way, the Kennington Housing Market, Council Tax Banding, the demographics of People living in the area, the dominant type of Housing, the Average Property Price, Crime details, Kennington Education with maps and statistics, Local Amenities and other useful data concerning Kennington.
I am buying my first flat in Kennington with a mortgage from Barnsley Building Society. The builders refused to budge the price so I negotiated five thousand pounds worth of fixtures and fittings instead. The house builders rep told me not disclose to my conveyancer about this extras as it would put at risk my loan with the lender. Is this normal?.
All lenders require a Disclosure of Incentives Form from the developer of any new build, converted or renovated property, It is available online from the Lenders’ Handbook page on the CML website. CML form is completed and handed to the lender's surveyor when the inspection is done.
Lenders have different policies on incentives. Some accept none at all, cash or physical, while others will accept cash incentives up to 5%.
Hard to understand why the representative of a builder would be suggesting you withold information from a solicitor when all this will be clearly visible on forms the builder has to supply to its solicitor, the buyer's solicitor and the surveyor.
My fiance and I may need to sub-let our Kennington basement flat for a while due to a new job. We instructed a Kennington conveyancing firm in 2001 but they have since shut and we did not have the foresight to get any guidance as to whether the lease permits subletting. How do we find out?
The lease governs relations between the landlord and you the leaseholder; specifically, it will say if subletting is prohibited, or permitted but only subject to certain caveats. The accepted inference is that if the lease contains no expres ban or restriction, subletting is allowed. Most leases in Kennington do not prevent strict prohibition on subletting – such a clause would undoubtedly devalue the property. Instead, there is usually simply a requirement that the owner notifies the freeholder, possibly sending a duplicate of the sublease.
We have reached the end of our tether in seeking a lease extension in Kennington. Can the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal adjudicate on premiums?
in cases where there is a missing landlord or where there is disagreement about what the lease extension should cost, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can apply to the LVT to arrive at the price payable.
An example of a Lease Extension matter before the tribunal for a Kennington flat is Ground Floor Flat 39 Bronsart Road in May 2010. Following a vesting order by West London County Court the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal concluded that the price to be paid for the extended lease of the premises was Thirteen Thousand Two hundred pounds (£13,200) in accordance with the valuation. The extended lease was granted for a term of 90 years from the expiry date of the Lease and at a peppercorn ground rent from the date of the vesting order. This case was in relation to 1 flat. The remaining number of years on the lease was 74.77 years.
Builders have recommended to me a property lawyer and I've sought a quote from them. It's almost £250 cheaper than my own Kennington conveyancing practitioner. What's the catch?
Builders often have lists of solicitors who are quick and who know the developer’s contract and conveyancing practitioner. Plenty of developers offer an inducement to use their approved property lawyer for this reason, any increased charges can be avoided and a builder will not recommend a conveyancing factory and run the risk of having the conveyancing delayed when they demand an exchange in 28 days. A counter-argument for not agreeing to use the suggested conveyancer is that they may prove unwilling to fight for your interests for fear of upsetting the sellers. If you worry that this may be the situation you should keep with your local Kennington lawyer.