My wife and I intend to remortgage our maisonette in Thornbury with Nationwide. We have a son approaching twenty who lives with us. Our solicitor has asked us to disclose anyone over the age of 17 other than ourselves who reside at the property. Our lawyer has now e-mailed a document for our son to sign, giving up any rights in the event that the apartment is forfeited by the lender. I have a couple of concerns (1) Is this document specific to the Nationwide conveyancing panel as he never had to sign this form when we remortgaged 3 years ago (2) Does our son by signing this giving up his rights to inherit the property?
First, rest assured that your Nationwide conveyancing panel solicitor is doing the right thing as it is established procedure for any occupier who is aged 17 or over to sign the necessary Consent Form, which is purely to state that any rights he has in the property are postponed and secondary to Nationwide. This is solely used to protect Nationwide if the property were re-possessed so that in such circumstances, your son would be legally obliged to leave. It does not impact your son’s right to inherit the apartment. Please note that if your son were to inherit and the mortgage in favour of Nationwide had not been discharged, he would be liable to take over the loan or pay it off, but other than that, there is nothing stopping him from keeping the property in accordance with your will or the rules of intestacy.
My grandfather passed away six months ago and as sole heir and executor I was left the house in Thornbury. The house had a relatively small loan left on it of around £4500. I want to have the title changed into my name whilst I re-mortgage to Lloyds, pay off the mortgage. Is this possible?
Given you plan to re-mortgage then Lloyds will require that you use a conveyancer on the Lloyds conveyancing panel. Here is link to the Land Registry online guidance around what to do when a property owner dies. This will help you to understand the registration process behind changing the details re the registered title. in your case it would appear that you are effectively purchasing the property from the estate. Your Lloyds conveyancing panel solicitor pays the new mortgage money into the estate, the estate pays off the old mortgage, the charge is released and you become the owner and the Lloyds mortgage is registered as a charge at the Land Registry.
My relative recommended that if I am purchasing in Thornbury I should ask my conveyancer to execute a Neighbourhood, Planning and Local Amenity Search. Can you explain what the purpose of this search is?
A search of this type is usually included in the estimate for your Thornbury conveyancing searches. It is a large document of more than thirty pages, listing and setting out important information about Thornbury around the property and the people living there. It includes an Aerial Photograph, Planning Applications, Land Use, Mobile Phone Masts, Rights of Way, the Thornbury Housing Market, Council Tax Banding, the type of People living in the area, the dominant type of Housing, the Average House Prices, Crime details, Thornbury Education with maps and statistics, Local Amenities and other useful data about Thornbury.
How does conveyancing in Thornbury differ for newly converted properties?
Most buyers of new build property in Thornbury contact us having been asked by the developer to exchange contracts and commit to the purchase even before the property is constructed. This is because builders in Thornbury typically purchase the land, plan the estate and want to get the plots sold off as they are building the properties. Buyers, therefore, will have to exchange contracts without actually seeing the house they are buying. To reduce the chances of losing the property, buyers should instruct conveyancers as soon as the property is reserved and mortgage applications should be submitted quickly. Due to the fact that it could be several months and even years between exchange of contracts and completion, the mortgage offer may need to be extended. It would be wise to use a lawyer who specialises in new build conveyancing especially if they are accustomed to new build conveyancing in Thornbury or who has acted in the same development.
I was pointed in your direction by numerous estate agents in Thornbury to select a solicitor on your site. What’s the financial advantage for Estate Agents to market your site ahead of alternative conveyancing organisations?
We refuse to give any financial incentive for pointing buyers and sellers to this site. We thought it would be too underhand a fee as home movers will think, ‘Why is the agent getting a kickback? Why aren’t I getting any benefit too?’ So we decided to step away from that.
The financial adviser has recommended their lawyer for our conveyancing in Thornbury - Is it not simpler better to just use them?
It is not always the case and you are at liberty to instruct whichever property lawyer you prefer for your Thornbury home move. The conveyancing practitioner put forward by a 3rd party adviser may not always be the best lawyer, they may put forward their preferred conveyancing firm who are based remotely. In this instance you may not have contact with your conveyancing practitioner and due to the lack of continuity in the transaction, it may be difficult to obtain progress reports.