My wife and I are hoping to purchase a flat in Malton and are in fact using a Malton conveyancing firm. Within the last couple of days our lawyer has forwarded the sale agreement to be signed with a detailed report with the expectation that exchange is imminent. Skipton Building Society have this evening contacted us to advise us that there is now an issue as our Malton conveyancer is not on their approved list of lawyers. Is this a problem?
When purchasing a property with the benefit of a mortgage it is conventional for the purchasers' solicitors to also represent 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 lender and see if they can apply for membership of their conveyancing panel, but if that is not viable they will instruct their own solicitors to act. You are not legally obliged to appoint a law firm on the bank's conveyancing panel and you may continue to use your own Malton solicitors, in which case your legal fees may increase, and it will likely delay the transaction as you have another set of people involved.
Please could you vouch for a Leeds Building Society approved Malton conveyancing conveyancer finish our house move within a short deadline? Am I best advised to choose a local Malton firm or an online comparison site?
We can recommend some very good Malton conveyancing firms. You can also walk up the high street in Malton. Go in to some well established firms and ask to speak with a conveyancing solicitor for a fee estimate. Explain your deadline together with the reasons and ask for an assurance on your deadline. Select the one that appears most efficient.
Finally the sale completed on my house in Malton last February but our buyer keeps e-mailing every few hours complaining that their lawyer is waiting to hear from mine. What should have happened now that I have sold?
Following your sale your conveyancer should deliver the transfer deeds and all additional paperwork to the purchaser's lawyers. If applicable, your conveyancer must also confirm that the legal charge in favour of the lender has been discharged to the purchasers lawyers. There is unlikely to be post completion procedures peculiar conveyancing in Malton.
My uncle passed away 10 months ago and as sole heir and executor I was left the house in Malton. The house had a small mortgage left on it of around £8000. I want to have the title changed into my name whilst I re-mortgage to Lloyds, pay off the mortgage. Is this possible?
Where you plan to re-mortgage then Lloyds will require that you use a conveyancer on the Lloyds conveyancing panel. Here is link to the Land Registry online guidance around what to do when a property owner dies. This will help you to understand the registration process behind changing the details re the registered title. in your case it would appear that you are effectively purchasing the property from the estate. Your Lloyds conveyancing panel solicitor pays the new mortgage money into the estate, the estate pays off the old mortgage, the charge is released and you become the owner and the Lloyds mortgage is registered as a charge at the Land Registry.
I am employed by a busy estate agent office in Malton where we have experienced a number of flat sales put at risk as a result of short leases. I have been given conflicting advice from local Malton conveyancing solicitors. Can you clarify whether the seller of a flat can instigate the lease extension process for the purchaser on completion of the sale?
As long as the seller has been the owner for at least 2 years it is possible, to serve a Section 42 notice to start the lease extension process and assign the benefit of the notice to the purchaser. This means that the proposed purchaser can avoid having to wait 2 years for a lease extension. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment needs to be completed before, or simultaneously with completion of the sale.
An alternative approach is to extend the lease informally by agreement with the landlord either before or after the sale. If you are informally negotiating there are no rules and so you cannot insist on the landlord agreeing to grant an extension or transferring the benefit of an agreement to the purchaser.
Malton Leasehold Conveyancing - Examples of Questions you should ask before Purchasing
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You will want to discover as much as you can regarding the managing agents as they can either make your living at the property much easier or problematic. Being a leasehold owner you are frequently in the clutches of the managing agents from a financial perspective and when it comes to practical matters such as the tidiness of the communal areas. Enquire of prospective neighbours what they think of their management. In conclusion, find out the dates that you are obliged pay the maintenance charge to the relevant party and specifically what you get for your money. Most Malton leasehold flats will have a service bill for maintenance of the block set by the management company. Where you acquire the property you will have to meet this contribution, normally in instalments during the year. This may differ from two or three hundred pounds to thousands of pounds for large purpose-built buildings. In all likelihood there will be a ground rent for you to pay yearly, this is usually not a large figure, say about £50-£100 but you need to enquire it because sometimes it could be many hundreds of pounds. Are any of leasehold owners in dispute over their service charge liability?
We are about to acquiring a apartment in Malton. Can the property lawyer keep our purchase price private from sites such as Rightmove. How can this be achieved ?
The Land Registry as a matter of law obliged to reveal price sold data on a register of the title for domestic properties nationwide which includes properties in Malton. The Title Register is an open document, so the Land Registry would be breaking the law if they failed to allow access to the register.
In essence you can make a request of HM Land Registry to hide the price paid data but the answer would be a No.