My partner and I are looking to purchase a house in Nine Elms and have instructed a Nine Elms conveyancing firm. Within the past 48 hours our property lawyer has sent a preliminary report and documents to look through in anticipation of exchanging contracts shortly. Aldermore have this evening contacted us to advise us that they have now hit a problem as our Nine Elms solicitor is not on their approved list of lawyers. Please explain?
When purchasing a property with the benefit of a mortgage it is usual 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 mortgage company 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 Nine Elms solicitors, in which case it will likely add costs, and it will likely delay the transaction as you have another set of people involved.
My husband and I swapping mortgage lender for our penthouse in Nine Elms with Principality. We have a son 19 who lives with us. Our solicitor has asked us to disclose any adults other than ourselves who reside at the property. Our lawyer has now e-mailed a document for our son to sign, giving up any rights in the event that the property is forfeited by the lender. I have two concerns (1) Is this document specific to the Principality conveyancing panel as he did not need to sign this form when we bought 3 years ago (2) Does our son by signing this compromise his entitlement to inherit the property?
First, rest assured that your Principality conveyancing panel solicitor is doing the right thing 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.
Are the Nine Elms conveyancing solicitors identified as being on the Coventry BS conveyancing panel, together with their details provided by Coventry BS?
Nine Elms conveyancing firms themselves provide us confirmation that they are on the Coventry BS conveyancing panel as opposed to being supplied with a list from Coventry BS directly.
My grandfather passed away last year and as sole heir and executor I was left the property in Nine Elms. The house had a relatively small loan left on it of around £4500. I want to transfer the title deeds into my name whilst I re-mortgage to Co-operative, pay off the mortgage. Is this allowed?
Where you plan to re-mortgage then Co-operative will insist on your using a conveyancer on the Co-operative 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 Co-operative 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 Co-operative mortgage is registered as a charge at the Land Registry.
I am buying a new build house in Nine Elms with the aid of help to buy. The builders would not move on the amount so I negotiated 6k of fixtures and fittings instead. The house builders rep suggested that I not to tell my conveyancer about the extras as it will adversely affect my mortgage with the bank. 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.
Due to the advice of my in-laws I had a survey completed on a property in Nine Elms ahead of instructing conveyancers. I have been advised that there is a flying freehold overhang to the property. Our surveyor advised that some banks may not give a loan on a flying freehold home.
It depends who your proposed lender is. Lloyds has different requirements from Halifax. Should you wish to telephone us we can investigate further via the appropriate bank. If you lender is happy to lend one our lawyers can help as they are accustomed to dealing with flying freeholds in Nine Elms. Conveyancing can be more complicated and therefore you should check with your conveyancing solicitor in Nine Elms to see if the conveyancing will be more expensive.