The St Mawes conveyancing lawyers that I recently instructed on my purchase in St Mawes have suddenly closed. I only went with them because I had to have a firm on the Coventry BS conveyancing panel and my previous St Mawes lawyer was not. I gave my credit card details for them to take £195 for searches. What do I do now?
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 the problems encountered. 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 Coventry BS 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 help.
I have a 4 bedroom Georgian property in St Mawes. Conveyancing practitioner represented me and Birmingham Midshires. I happened to do a free search for it on the Land Registry database and I saw a couple of entries: one for freehold, another for leasehold under the exact same property. Is it worth asking Birmingham Midshires to clarify?
You should review the Freehold register you have again and check the Charges Register for mention of a lease. The best way to be sure that you are also the registered proprietor of the leasehold and freehold title as well is to check (£3). It is not completely unheard of in St Mawes and other locations in the country and poses no real issues for owners other than when they buy they have to account for both freehold and leasehold interests when dealing with buyers. You can also question the situation with your conveyancing solicitor who carried out the work.
I am buying my first flat in St Mawes with a mortgage from Chelsea Building Society. The developers refused to reduce the amount so I negotiated five thousand pounds worth of fixtures and fittings instead. The sale representative told me not disclose to my solicitor about this extras as it will jeopardize my mortgage with Chelsea Building Society. Is this normal?.
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.
I opted to have a survey carried out on a house in St Mawes in advance of retaining lawyers. I have been advised that there is a flying freehold element to the property. Our surveyor has said that some mortgage companies will refuse to issue a loan on a flying freehold premises.
It varies from the lender to lender. Lloyds has different instructions for example to Halifax. Should you wish to call us we can look into this further with the relevant mortgage company. If you lender is happy to lend one our lawyers can assist as they are accustomed to dealing with flying freeholds in St Mawes. Conveyancing may be slightly more expensive based on your lender's requirements.
I have been pointed in your direction by numerous property agents in St Mawes to select a property lawyer on your site. Is there a financial advantage for Estate Agents to market your lawyers ahead of another?
We refuse to offer any commission for sending work our way. We found it would be just too difficult to pay a commission as a client could think, ‘Why is the agent getting a kickback? Why aren’t I receiving any benefit too?’ So we decided to step away from that.
At last I have had an offer on an apartment in St Mawes agreed to, but there is a chain. The current proprietors have offered on a flat, however it’s not yet agreed to, and has viewings of other apartments in the pipeline. I have instructed a local conveyancing lawyer in St Mawes. What should be my next step? When do I get the mortgage application with Coventry BS started with Coventry BS?
It is standard to have anxieties where there is an associated chain as you are unlikely to want to incur expenses too early (home loan application is in the region of one thousand pounds, then valuation, St Mawes conveyancing search fees, etc). First, you should ensure that your conveyancer is on the Coventry BS conveyancing panel. Regarding the next stages this very much dictated by the uniqueness of your transaction, desire for this property and on the state of the market. During a hot market some buyers will apply for the mortgage with Coventry BS and pay for the survey and only if it was satisfactory would they ask their lawyer to press on with searches.