My wife and I are looking to buy a property in St Mawes and are in fact using a St Mawes conveyancing practice. Within the last couple of days our property lawyer has sent a preliminary report and documents to look through with a view to exchanging next week. Skipton Building Society have this afternoon contacted us to advise us that they have now hit a problem as our St Mawes lawyer is not on their approved list of lawyers. Is this a problem?
When purchasing a property with the benefit of a mortgage it is normal for the purchasers' solicitors to also act for 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 property lawyer should contact your bank 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 lender’s conveyancing panel and you may continue to use your own St Mawes solicitors, in which case your legal fees may increase, and it will likely delay the transaction as you are adding another lawyer into the mix.
Please could you vouch for a National Westminster Bank allowed St Mawes conveyancing solicitor who can have us moved in within a short deadline? Would it be better to use a high street St Mawes conveyancer or a factory type comparison site?
We would be happy to suggest some excellent St Mawes conveyancing firms. You can also walk up the main road in St Mawes. Approach some well established firms and ask to see a conveyancing solicitor for a fee estimate. Explain your deadline together with the reasons and get an assurance on your deadline. Appoint the one that you trust.
The St Mawes conveyancing lawyers that just started acting on my house acquisition in St Mawes have without warning closed. I only went with them because I had to have a solicitor on the Virgin Money conveyancing panel and my family St Mawes lawyer was not. I paid them £170 on account. What are my options?
Assuming that you have an Estate Agent in the equation 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 Virgin Money 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 may be able to assist.
2 months have elapsed since my purchase conveyancing in St Mawes took place. I have checked the Land Registry website which shows that I paid £150,000 when infact I paid £180,000. Why the discrepancy?
The price paid figure is taken from the application to register the purchase. It is the figure included in the Transfer (the legal deed which transfers the residence from one person to the other) and referred to as the 'consideration' or purchase price. You can report an error in the price paid figure using the LR online form. In most cases errors result from typos so at first glance the figure. Do report it so they can double check and advise.
Having had my offer accepted I require leasehold conveyancing in St Mawes. Before I set the wheels in motion I want to be sure as to the number of years remaining on the lease.
If the lease is recorded at the land registry - and 99.9% are in St Mawes - then the leasehold title will always include the short particulars of the lease, namely the date; the term; and the original parties. From a conveyancing perspective such details then enable any prospective buyer and lender to confirm that any lease they are looking at is the one relevant to that title. For any other purpose, such as confirming how long the term was granted for and calculating what is left, then the register should be sufficient on it's own.
I inherited a basement flat in St Mawes, conveyancing having been completed January 2001. Can you let me have an estimate of the premium that my landlord can legally expect in return for granting a renewal of my lease? Similar properties in St Mawes with an extended lease are worth £206,000. The ground rent is £45 levied per year. The lease comes to an end on 21st October 2088
With just 66 years unexpired we estimate the premium for your lease extension to be between £12,400 and £14,200 as well as plus your own and the landlord's "reasonable" professional fees.
The suggested premium range that we have given is a general guide to costs for renewing a lease, but we are not able to provide the actual costs in the absence of comprehensive due diligence. You should not use the figures in tribunal or court proceedings. There are no doubt additional issues that need to be considered and you obviously should be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. Please do not move forward placing reliance on this information without first getting professional advice.
The estate agent has suggested using their conveyancer for our conveyancing in St Mawes - won’t it be better to just use them?
It is worth checking if the estate agent is recommending a property lawyer or introducing to a property lawyer. There are plenty of St Mawes selling agents who recommend two or three St Mawes conveyancing firms purely based on those lawyers offering a great service.