My fiance and I are looking to buy a property in Belgravia and have appointed a Belgravia conveyancing practice. Within the past 48 hours our solicitor has sent a preliminary report and documents to look through with the expectation that exchange is imminent. Birmingham Midshires have this evening contacted us to inform me that they have now hit a problem as our Belgravia conveyancer is not on their conveyancing panel. Please explain?
Where you are buying a property requiring a mortgage it is conventional for the purchasers' lawyers to also represent the mortgage company. 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 mortgage company and see if they can apply for membership of their conveyancing panel, but if that is not viable they will instruct their own solicitors to act. You don't have to instruct a firm on the lender’s conveyancing panel as you are at liberty to use your preferred Belgravia lawyers, in which case it will likely add costs, and it may delay matters as you have another set of people involved.
I am buying a property for cash in Belgravia. I have resided for the previous dozen years in Belgravia. Conveyancing searches are a lot of money. Given that I have knowledge of the road and vicinity intimately should I not bother getting the solicitor to do all the conveyancing searches?
Provided that you do not need a mortgage, then almost all of the Belgravia conveyancing searches are non-obligatory. Your conveyancer will try and sway you, no-doubt strongly, that you should have searches carried out, but he is duty bound to do this. One thing to take into account; if you are likely to sell the house at a future date, it could be of interest to your prospective purchaser what the searches disclose. There are plenty of instances where properties with day to day issues can still throw up adverse search results. A good conveyancing solicitor in Belgravia should provide you some constructive guidance in this regard.
How do I find out if the solicitor handling my conveyancing in Belgravia is on the mortgage lender’sconveyancing panel? I am looking to avoid the situation of having one lawyer for me and one for Chelsea Building Society thus paying £175.00 in further conveyancing fees.
Feel free to make use of the find a conveyancing panel solicitor tool on this page. Please choose the lender and type ‘Belgravia’ or your preferred area and you will discover numerous solicitors located in Belgravia or near you.
Do commercial conveyancing searches reveal proposed roadworks that may impact a commercial site in Belgravia?
Many commercial conveyancing solicitors in Belgravia will conduct a SiteSolutions Highways report as it reduces the time that conveyancers spend in researching accurate data on highways that impact buildings and development assets in Belgravia. The report sets out definitive data on the adoption status of roads, footpaths and verges, as well as the implication of traffic schemes and the rights of way surrounding a commercial development sites in Belgravia.
For every commercial conveyancing transaction in Belgravia it is critical to investigate the adoption status of roads surrounding a site. The absence of identifying developments where adoption procedures have not been dealt with adequately may result in delays to Belgravia commercial conveyancing deals as well as pose a risk to future plans for the site. These searches are not ordered for domestic conveyancing in Belgravia.
Am I best advised to instruct a Belgravia conveyancing solicitor in close proximity to the house I am hoping to buy? We have a good friend who can handle the legal work however his firm is located 400miles drive away.
The primary upside of using a local Belgravia conveyancing firm is that you can drop in to execute documents, deliver your identification documents and pester them if necessary. They will also have local intelligence which is a bonus. However nothing is more important than finding someone that will pull out all the stops for you. If if people you trust instructed your friend and they were content that must outweigh using an unknown Belgravia conveyancing solicitor just because they are Belgravia based.