My fiance and I are hoping to buy a flat in South Ruislip and have appointed a South Ruislip conveyancing practice. Within the past 48 hours our lawyer has forwarded the sale agreement to be signed with a detailed report in anticipation of exchanging contracts shortly. Birmingham Midshires have this morning contacted us to advise us that there is now an issue as our South Ruislip conveyancer is not on their approved list of lawyers. Please explain?
Where 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 property lawyer 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 lawyers to represent them. You don't have to instruct a firm on the bank's conveyancing panel as you are at liberty to use your preferred South Ruislip lawyers, in which case your legal fees may increase, and it will likely delay the transaction as you are adding another lawyer into the mix.
The South Ruislip conveyancing solicitors that just started acting on my house acquisition in South Ruislip have without warning closed. I chose them because I had to have a lawyer on the Kent Reliance conveyancing panel and my previous South Ruislip lawyer was not. I cut them a cheque for £250 in advance. What should be my next steps?
If you have an estate agent involved then inform them immediately so that they can let the sellers know 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 should appoint new lawyers that are on the Kent Reliance 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 solicitors should be in a position to assist.
I require expedited conveyancing in South Ruislip as I have an ultimatum to exchange contracts in less than one month. Luckily I do not require a mortgage. Can I escape the need for conveyancing searches to save fees and time?
If.Given you are not getting a home loan you have the choice not to do searches although no conveyancer would recommend that you don't. With plenty of history conveyancing in South Ruislip the following are instances of what can show up and therefore affect the marketability of the property: Enforcement Notices, Overdue Fees, Overdue Grants, Unadopted Roads,...
Are there restrictive covenants that are commonly picked up as part of conveyancing in South Ruislip?
Covenants that are restrictive in nature can be picked up when reviewing land registry title as part of the legal transfer of property in South Ruislip. An 1874 stipulation that was seen was ‘The houses to be erected on the estate are each to be of a uniform elevation in accordance with the drawings to be prepared or approved by the vendor’s surveyor…’
I decided to have a survey carried out on a property in South Ruislip prior to instructing lawyers. I have been informed that there is a flying freehold element to the house. Our surveyor has said that some banks will not issue a mortgage on such a house.
It depends who your proposed lender is. Lloyds has different instructions for example to 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 assist as they are accustomed to dealing with flying freeholds in South Ruislip. Conveyancing can be more complicated and therefore you should check with your conveyancing solicitor in South Ruislip to see if the conveyancing costs will increase in light of this.
When it comes to my conveyancing in South Ruislip should I be paying VAT on the following: (1) Land reg fee on purchase (2) Pre - completion search fee (3) SDLT E submission on purchase (4) Bank TT fee
(1) Land reg fee on purchase - No (2) Pre - completion search fees -No, (such conveyancing searches are HMLR ones and means £4 and possibly £2 bankruptcy per name on your mortgage) (3) SDLT E submission on your purchase - There is no VAT on Stamp Duty. However if the firm is charging a stamp duty e-submission fee as part of their services - some South Ruislip conveyancers do - that will incur VAT(4) Bank transfer fee - Yes it is for the conveyancer's time in submitting the funds this way.