My fiance and I are planning to acquire a house in Little Ilford and are in fact using a Little Ilford conveyancing firm. Within the last couple of days our property lawyer has forwarded the sale agreement to be signed with a detailed report in anticipation of exchanging contracts shortly. Coventry Building Society have this morning contacted us to advise us that there is now an issue as our Little Ilford solicitor is not on their conveyancing panel. Please explain?
Where you are buying a property with the assistance 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 solicitor should contact your lender 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 are not legally obliged to appoint a law firm on the bank's conveyancing panel as you are at liberty to use your preferred Little Ilford 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.
I am acquiring a property for cash in Little Ilford. I have lived for the last twelve years in Little Ilford. Conveyancing searches are a lot of money. As I know the area and road intimately should I not bother getting the solicitor to do all the conveyancing searches?
In the absence of a mortgage, then almost all of the Little Ilford conveyancing searches are optional. Your conveyancer will 'advise', no-doubt strongly, that you should have searches completed, but she has a professional duty to take that path of advice. Do consider; if you are likely to dispose of the house one day, it may be of relevance to your future purchaser what the searches disclose. There are plenty of instances where properties with functional issues can still throw up unexpected search results. A good conveyancing solicitor in Little Ilford should be able to give you some sensible advice concerning this.
What happens if my lawyer’s firm is removed from the HSBC Solicitor panel ahead of completing my conveyancing in Little Ilford?
First, this is a very rare occurrence. In most cases even where a law firm is removed off of a panel the lender would allow the completion to go ahead as the lender would appreciate the difficulties that they would place you in if you have to instruct a new solicitor days before completion. In a worst case scenario where the lender insists that you instruct a new firm then it is possible for a very good lawyer to expedite the conveyancing albeit that you may pay a significant premium for this. The analogous situation is where a buyer instructs a lawyer, exchanges contracts and the law firm is shut down by a regulator such as the SRA. Again, in this situation you can find lawyers who can troubleshoot their way to bring the conveyancing to a satisfactory conclusion - albeit for a fee.
is it true that all Little Ilford solicitors on the Yorkshire BS conveyancing panel are overseen by the SRA?
As solicitors, in order to be on the Yorkshire BS approved list of solicitors they would need to be overseen by the SRA. Many banks do list licenced conveyancers on their panel in which case such organisation would be governed by the Council of Licensed Conveyancers.
I have a mortgage with Principality for my property in Little Ilford. Conveyancing has been completed months ago. In the event that I decide to rent out my property and do not currently have a buy-to-let mortgage do I need to remortgage to a BTL mortgage or inform Principality?
Your original mortgage agreement with Principality will provide that you need their approval in advance of letting out your property as this is likely to be a breach of Principality’s mortgage conditions. It may be that Principality will allow you to rent out your former home without needing to switch to a buy-to-let mortgage but some lenders will add a surcharge to your mortgage rate to reflect the higher risk. You should contact Principality directly. It should not be necessary to do this via a Principality conveyancing panel firm.
Our sealed bid on a semi in Little Ilford has been accepted, but there is a chain. The sellers have put an offer on on an apartment, but it’s not been accepted yet, and have viewings of other apartments in the pipeline. I have instructed a local conveyancing solicitor in Little Ilford. What do I do now? At what stage do I apply for the mortgage with Santander?
It is understandable to have anxieties where there is a chain as you are unlikely to want to be too out of pocket prematurely (mortgage application is approx £1k, then valuation, Little Ilford conveyancing search charges, etc). First, you should check that your solicitor is on the Santander conveyancing panel. Regarding the next phase this very much depends on the circumstances of your transaction, motivation for the property and on the state of the market. In a hot market many home buyers would apply for the mortgage with Santander and arrange for the valuation and only if it was satisfactory would they pay their conveyancing practitioner to proceed with searches.
I have todayfound out that Stirling Law have closed. They conducted my conveyancing in Little Ilford for a purchase of a leasehold flat 12 months ago. How can I establish that my home is registered correctly in the name of the former proprietor?
The easiest method to check if the premises is registered to you, you can make a search of the land registry (£3.00). You can either do this yourself or ask a law firm to do this for you. If you are not registered you can seek help from one of a number of Little Ilford conveyancing specialists.