We are purchasing a new build duplex in St Albans and my solicitor is advising me that she is duty bound to the mortgage company to reveal incentives from the seller. I am under pressure to sign contracts and my preference is not to delay the conveyancing. Is my lawyer right?
You should not exchange unless you have been advised to do so by your conveyancing practitioner. A precondition to being on a bank panel is to comply with the UK Finance Lenders’ Handbook conditions. The CML Conveyancing Handbook requires that your lawyer have the appropriate Disclosure of Incentive form completed by the developer and accepted by your lender.
Is there a search tool that I can use to discover of the solicitor carrying out my conveyancing in St Albans is on the bank’sconveyancing panel? I am looking to avoid the situation of having one lawyer for me and one for Yorkshire Building Society thus paying £175.00 in another set of legal charges.
You should take advantage of the search tool on this web page. Pick the lender and type ‘St Albans’ or your location and you will discover a number of lawyer offices in St Albans or near you.
Is it possible to change solicitor as I need to appoint a firm on the Coventry Building Society conveyancing list. I instructed a family conveyancing solicitor in St Albans five minutes from me but he is not approved by Coventry Building Society
It would be our pleasure to assist you select a conveyancing solicitor in St Albans on the Coventry Building Society panel. Please note that the law firms that we on the directory do not pay us a referral fee if you instruct them and are authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority who oversee all conveyancing solicitors in St Albans. Using search facility on this page, you can scrutinise charges for conveyancing solicitors in St Albans and beyond.
My partner has suggested that I appoint his conveyancing solicitors in St Albans. Do I follow his recommendation?
Much as we are happy to recommend a St Albans conveyancing lawyer the best way to select a conveyancing lawyer is to get recommendations from friends or family who have actually previously instructed the conveyancer that you are considering.
I am employed by a reputable estate agency in St Albans where we see a number of leasehold sales derailed due to short leases. I have received contradictory information from local St Albans conveyancing firms. Can you shed some light as to whether the seller of a flat can instigate the lease extension process for the buyer?
As long as the seller has been the owner for at least 2 years it is possible, to serve a Section 42 notice to kick-start the lease extension process and assign the benefit of the notice to the purchaser. This means that the buyer need not have to sit tight for 2 years to extend their lease. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment needs to be completed before, or at the same time as 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.
St Albans Conveyancing for Leasehold Flats - Sample of Questions you should consider before buying
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How many years remain on the lease? Please tell me if there are any major works anticipated that could increase the maintenance charges? Plenty St Albans leasehold properties will have a service charge for maintenance of the block invoiced on behalf of the management company. Where you buy the flat you will have to meet this charge, usually in instalments accross the year. This could differ from two or three hundred pounds to thousands of pounds for large purpose-built blocks. In all probability there will be a rentcharge to be met annual, normally this is not a large figure, say around £50-£100 but you need to enquire as on occasion it can be many hundreds of pounds.
Do online conveyancing companies do everything a local St Albans solicitor does or do I still need to employ a solicitor for the final stages for my conveyancing in St Albans?
If you instruct an online conveyancer they should undertake all the work your St Albans conveyancer will cover.