My wife and I are hoping to acquire a flat in Hanworth and are in fact using a Hanworth conveyancing practice. Within the last couple of days our lawyer has forwarded the sale agreement to be signed with a detailed report with a view to exchanging next week. Platform Home Loans Ltd have this evening contacted us to advise us that they have now hit a problem as our Hanworth solicitor is not on their approved list of lawyers. Please explain?
If you are buying a property needing 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 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 are not legally obliged to appoint a law firm on the lender’s conveyancing panel and you may continue to use your own Hanworth solicitors, in which case your legal fees may increase, and it will likely delay the transaction as you have another set of people involved.
The Hanworth conveyancing firm that I recently instructed on my purchase in Hanworth have suddenly closed. They were on acting for me because I needed a firm on the UBS conveyancing panel and my preferred Hanworth lawyer was not. I gave my credit card details for them to take one hundred and fifty pounds for searches. What should be my next steps?
If you have an estate agent involved then inform them straight away so that they advise the vendors that there may be a slight delay due to reasons beyond your control. Most sellers would be sympathetic and urge their lawyer to send a new set of papers to your new solicitors. You should appoint new lawyers that are on the UBS 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 lawyers should be in a position to assist.
It has been 3 months following my purchase conveyancing in Hanworth concluded. I have checked the Land Registry website which shows that I paid £175,000 when infact I paid £160,000. Why the discrepancy?
The price paid figure is taken from the application to register the purchase. It is the figure included in the Transfer (the legal deed which transfers the residence from one person to the other) and referred to as the 'consideration' or purchase price. You can report an error in the price paid figure using the LR online form. In most cases errors result from typos so at first glance the figure. Do report it so they can double check and advise.
Am I right to be suspicious about third parties that I am dealing with are encouraging me to use a national conveyancing firm rather than a local Hanworth conveyancing practice?
As is the case with lots of professional services, often referrals from connections can be extremely useful or valuable. But there are numerous players in a conveyancing transaction; estate agents, mortgage brokers and mortgage companies may put forward lawyers to appoint. Sometimes the solicitors might be known to one of the organisations as experts in their field, but occasionally there exists a financial incentive behind the endorsement. You have the right to select your own conveyancer. You need to be aware that the majority of banks operate an approved list of conveyancers you are obliged to use for the lender related work in your conveyancing.
Our conveyancer in Hanworth has informed me that he requires identification documents stating that this is part of his obligations as a solicitor on the mortgage company Solicitor panel. Is this right?
Anti-terror and anti-money-laundering rules require Hanworth conveyancing solicitors and licensed conveyancers to verify the identity of the person or body they are dealing with before they can accept their conveyancing business. The Client Care letter that you need to sign will no doubt confirm this. Your lawyer is right that the mortgage company also require certain documents to be viewed. If a you refuse to provide ID verification documents, your conveyancer would not be able to accept instructions from you. Your lawyer also has obligations to obtain certain documents in accordance with the bank's UK Finance Lenders’ Handbook requirements