My wife and I are purchasing a ground floor flat in Kirkstall. My property lawyer is not on the lender conveyancing list. Can I still continue with my Kirkstall conveyancing solicitor even though they are excluded from the bank list of approved lawyers?
One will need to have a property lawyer to complete the formalities when you require a loan to purchase your property. The solicitor will carry out all the relevant investigations on the property, make sure that you will be properly registered as the owner and ensure that all the necessary mortgage paperwork is dealt with. You could appoint a Kirkstall property lawyer of your choosing. Nevertheless, if the conveyancer appointed is not a member of the bank approved list further costs will be incurred as separate legal representation will be required by them. Lender panel applications may be submitted, so if your lawyer has not previously sought membership they should do so.
Having sold my house in Kirkstall last April but the buyer keeps SMS messaging every few hours to say his lawyer is waiting to hear from mylawyer. What should my lawyer have done following completion?
After completion of your disposal your solicitor should send the transfer deeds and all of the paperwork to the buyer’s lawyers. If applicable, your solicitor must also send confirmation that the home loan has been repaid to the purchasers conveyancers. There is unlikely to be post completion tasks unique to conveyancing in Kirkstall.
Are all Kirkstall Conveyancing Quality Solicitors on the UBS conveyancing panel?
A selection of banks and building societies now use CQS as the kick off point for Panel membership such as HSBC and Santander. The Law Society’s CQS accreditation however is no guarantee to lender panel acceptance. That being said,the Council of Mortgage Lenders have indicated that it is likely to become a pre-requisite for solicitors wishing to remain on their approved list of firms.
We previously appointed conveyancing lawyers locally in Kirkstall on the Coventry BS solicitor panel. They have just billed me a separate charge for handling the Coventry BS mortgage. Is this an additional conveyancing fee specified by Coventry BS?
Provided it is contained in their Terms and Conditions or Quote then yes your solicitor is entitled to charge a fee for this. The fee is not dictated by Coventry BS but by your Kirkstall property lawyer. Numerous firms on the Coventry BS panel will levy ’dealing with mortgage’ fee and others do not.
I recently had an offer accepted on a house in Kirkstall. My mortgage broker recommended their conveyancers. I paid an on account payment of £200. A couple of days later, the property lawyer contacted me sheepishly admitting that they were not on the HSBC 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 HSBC 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.
Are there restrictive covenants that are commonly identified during conveyancing in Kirkstall?
Covenants that are restrictive in nature can be picked up when reviewing land registry title as part of the legal transfer of property in Kirkstall. An 1874 stipulation that was seen was ‘The houses to be erected on the estate are each to be of a uniform elevation in accordance with the drawings to be prepared or approved by the vendor’s surveyor…’
Should local authority consent be required to convert a house into a couple of appartments in Kirkstall? This has been done to a house next door to my home in Kirkstall and was unaware of the conversion until it was complete.
Planning consent is required for splitting a single dwelling in Kirkstall into apartments but possibly not for reverting back to single dwelling-house so, in answer to your query, yes,a it is required.