The owners have very pushy vendors who has insisted on a exclusivity contract with a deposit of 5k. Are such agreements recommended for Mayfair conveyancing transactions?
This kind of preliminary agreement isn't common in Mayfair, conveyancers will often try and steer clients away from them as they divert attention from the primary objective, namely conveyancing and if you end up losing your deposit then the solicitor is left exposed. Secondly, there is no assurance that just because the seller has entered into an exclusivity contract they will sell to you. They may be inclined to break the contract if they are offered a large enough financial inducement to do so because an aggrieved purchaser with the benefit of a lockoutcontract will still be legally obliged to establish consequential losses from the breach and these may not equalise the financial benefit that your seller may secure by breaking the agreement, however morally condemnable the behaviour is.
The Mayfair conveyancing lawyers that I recently instructed on my purchase in Mayfair have suddenly closed. They were on acting for me because I had to have a solicitor on the Principality conveyancing panel and my family Mayfair lawyer was not. I paid them 275 plus VAT in advance. What should be my next steps?
If you have an estate agent involved then inform them straight away 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 will need to appoint new lawyers that are on the Principality 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 lawyers may be able to help.
When it comes to mortgage companies such as UBS, do Mayfair conveyancing practitioners face a fee to be on the list of approved solicitors?
We are not aware of any bank fees to be on their panel, although some do levy an administration charge to deal with the processing of the conveyancing panel submission.
Last month we had a mortgage agreed in principle with Yorkshire BS. Mayfair conveyancing solicitors are instructed. How long does it take for Yorkshire BS to forward the offer to the solicitor?
There is no definitive answer here. Have Yorkshire BS done the valuation? Have you informed Yorkshire BS as to your lawyers' details and checked that your lawyers are on the Yorkshire BS conveyancing panel? Sometimes it can take as long as six weeks for a mortgage offer to be issued.
After much negotiation I have agreed a price on a house in Mayfair. My financial adviser suggested a lawyer. I paid an advanced payment of £200. A few days later, the solicitor contacted me embarrassingly acknowledging that they were not on the Coventry BS 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 Coventry BS 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.
I moved into my home on 9 September and my personal details is yet to be registered. Should I be concerned? My conveyancing solicitor in Mayfair said it will be recorded in less than a month. Are titles in Mayfair particularly slow to register?
As far as conveyancing in Mayfair is concerned, registration is no faster or slower than the rest of England and Wales. Rather than based on location, timescales can differ subject to who lodges the application, whether it is in order and whether the Land registry communicate with any third parties. Currently approximately 80% of such applications are fully dealt with in less than three weeks but occasionally there can be longer hold-ups. Registration occurs after the purchaser is living at the property thus registration formalities is not typically primary concern yet where it is urgent that the the registration takes place urgently then you or your conveyancer must communicate with the Registry to express the reasoning for the application to be prioritised.
I am buying my first flat in Mayfair with the aid of help to buy. The builders refused to reduce the price so I negotiated five thousand pounds worth of additionals instead. The sale representative advised me not reveal to my conveyancer about the side-deal as it would adversely affect my mortgage with the bank. Do I keep my lawyer in the dark?.
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 brother has recommend that I instruct his lawyers for conveyancing in Mayfair. Should I use them?
There are no two ways about it it’s preferable to choose a conveyancing solicitor is to have referrals from friends or relatives who have actually experience in using the conveyancer you're are thinking of instructing.