My fiance and I are hoping to acquire a home in Oval and have instructed a Oval conveyancing firm. Within the past 48 hours our conveyancer has sent a preliminary report and documents to look through with the expectation that exchange is imminent. Nottingham Building Society have this morning contacted us to advise us that they have now hit a problem as our Oval lawyer is not on their conveyancing panel. What do we do from here?
If you are buying a property needing a mortgage it is conventional for the purchasers' lawyers 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 Accreditation 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 don't have to instruct a firm on the bank's conveyancing panel as you are at liberty to use your preferred Oval lawyers, in which case your legal fees may increase, and it will likely delay the transaction as you have another set of people involved.
Do all mortgage companies provide you with an approved list of Oval conveyancing solicitors? How do you know who is on the Barclays conveyancing panel?
Oval conveyancing firms themselves provide us confirmation that they are on the Barclays conveyancing panel as opposed to being supplied with a list from Barclays directly.
I am selling my home in Oval. Will the lawyer need to be required to be on the Nationwide conveyancing panel in order to deal with paying off my mortgage?
Ordinarily, even if your lawyer is not on the Nationwide conveyancing panel they can still act for you on your sale. It might be that the lender will not release the original deeds (if applicable and increasingly irrelevant) until after the mortgage is paid off. You should speak to your lawyer directly before you start the process though to ensure that there is no problem as lenders are changing their conditions fairly frequently in recent years.
Have just purchased a probate house at auction in Oval. Conveyancing is required. What are my next steps?
Now that you are exchanged you now have to instruct a conveyancing lawyer soon as you are faced with a tight deadline in which to complete the purchase. All auction property will have an associated auction set of papers. This will likely include evidence of title and search results. If you have purchased leasehold premises the conveyancing pack should provide a copy of the lease, management information and a sellers leasehold information form and associated conveyancing paperwork pertinent to a leasehold property. You must give this to your appointed conveyancing solicitor as soon as possible. Do make sure that you have funds organised to complete on the date specified in the contract.
is it true that all Oval solicitor practices on the Santander conveyancing panel are overseen by the Solicitors Regulatory Authority?
As a firm of solicitors, in order to be on the Santander conveyancing panel they would need to be governed by the SRA. Some banks do list licenced conveyancers on their panel in which case such firms would be governed by the Council of Licensed Conveyancers.
After months of negotiation I have agreed a price on a house in Oval. My financial adviser pressured me to appoint their solicitor. I paid an upfront payment of £200. A couple of days later, the lawyer contacted me sheepishly admitting that they were not on the UBS 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 UBS 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'm purchasing my first flat in Oval with a mortgage from Platform Home Loans Ltd. The builders refused to reduce the price so I negotiated £7000 of fixtures and fittings instead. The sale representative told me not reveal to my solicitor about this side-deal as it could impact my loan with the bank. Do I keep my lawyer in the dark?.
All lenders require a Disclosure of Incentives Form from the builder 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.
Over the last few months I have been searching for a flat up to £245,000 and found one close by in Oval I like with open areas and station nearby, however it only has 51 years on the lease. I can't really find anything else in Oval suitable, so just wondered if I would be making a grave error acquiring a lease with such few years left?
Should you need a home loan the remaining unexpired lease term will likely be a potential deal breaker. Reduce the price by the anticipated lease extension will cost if it has not already been discounted. If the existing proprietor has owned the premises for a minimum of 2 years you may ask them to commence the lease extension formalities and then assign it to you. An additional ninety years can be extended on to the existing lease and have £0 ground rent by law. You should speak to your conveyancing solicitor about this.