My fiance and I are planning to purchase a house in Crook and are in fact using a Crook conveyancing firm. Within the past 48 hours our conveyancer has forwarded the sale agreement to be signed with a detailed report with a view to exchanging next week. Norwich and Peterborough Building Society have this afternoon contacted us to inform me that they have now hit a problem as our Crook solicitor is not on their conveyancing panel. What do we do from here?
Where you are buying a property needing a mortgage it is standard 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 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 Crook solicitors, in which case your legal fees may increase, and it may delay matters as you have another set of people involved.
The owners have rather pushy vendors who has suggested a exclusivity contract with a payment of 5k. Are such agreements sensible?
There are two main downsides with entering into any lock out agreement (occasionally termed a no-shop agreement) is that it diverts attention away from moving forward with the conveyancing process, so unless it requires little or no negotiation then it may turn out to be unhelpful. It is not particularly popular amongst Crook conveyancing lawyers for this reason. A supplemental negative is the extent of the remedies available - an aggrieved buyer is not likely to be issued with an injunctive ruling by a court to prohibit the seller selling to an alternative purchaser, so the only remedy available under the agreement will be the recovery of abortive charges and, in rare situations, the extra payment of penalties.
We had instructed solicitors based in Crook on the Barclays solicitor panel. They have just billed me a further sum for the legal aspects of the Barclays mortgage. Is this a supplemental conveyancing fee specified by Barclays?
Unfortunately, so long as it is in their Terms of Engagement or Quote then yes your solicitor can levy a fee for this. This fee is not set by Barclays but by your Crook conveyancing practitioner. Numerous firms on the Barclays panel will quote an ‘acting for lender’ fee but plenty of firms incorporate it on their overall fee.
We are getting a further advance on our home loan from Coventry BS as we intend to conduct renovations to our home in Crook. Do we need to appoint a high street Crook solicitor on the Coventry BS conveyancing panel to deal with the paperwork?
Coventry BS would not normally appoint a member of their approved list of lawyers to deal with the formalities. If they do require any legal work then you would need to ensure that such a lawyer was on the Coventry BS conveyancing panel.
I recently had an offer agreed on an apartment in Crook. My mortgage broker suggested a conveyancing practitioner. I paid an on account payment of £225. Shortly after, the solicitor contacted me to say that they were not on the Nottingham conveyancing panel. Am I right in thinking that I should be due a refund?
You should be able to recover this from the law firm if they were not on the Nottingham panel. They should have asked at the outset which lender you were obtaining a mortgage with. An important lesson to readers of this site is to check that the lawyers are on the appropriate lender panel.
I decided to have a survey completed on a house in Crook prior to appointing solicitors. I have been informed that there is a flying freehold element to the house. The surveyor advised that some mortgage companies will not grant a loan on a flying freehold premises.
It depends who your proposed lender is. HSBC has different instructions for example to Nationwide. If you call us we can investigate further via the relevant lender. If you lender is happy to lend one our lawyers can assist as they are accustomed to dealing with flying freeholds in Crook. Conveyancing can be more complicated and therefore you should check with your conveyancing solicitor in Crook to see if the conveyancing will be more expensive.
What tools are available to identify a Crook law firm on the Santander conveyancing panel? I have a car and am happy to travel upto 10kilometers to meet the solicitor.
Feel free to make use of the facility on this website. Please choose the mortgage company and your location and you will see a number of Crook conveyancing lawyers located nearest you. We have listed some Crook conveyancing firms at the bottom of this page and you can contact them to check if they are on the Santander panel