My husband and I are acquiring a brand new flat in Long Hanborough and my solicitor is informing me that she is duty bound to the mortgage company to reveal incentives from the developer. I am under pressure to sign contracts and I don't want to prolong matters. is my lawyer playing by the book?
You should not exchange unless you have been advised to do so by your solicitor. A precondition to being on a lender panel is to comply with the UK Finance Lenders’ Handbook requirements. The CML Conveyancing Handbook requires that your lawyer have the appropriate Disclosure of Incentive form completed by the developer and accepted by your lender.
How up to date is your database of Long Hanborough solicitors on the HSBC conveyancing panel? Do HSBC send you an updated list?
Long Hanborough conveyancing firms themselves provide us confirmation that they are on the HSBC conveyancing panel as opposed to being supplied with a list from HSBC directly.
Please help - my lawyer says that defective lease insurance is necessary on my purchase. What is the typical level of cover needed for conveyancing in Long Hanborough?
The appropriate level of defective lease indemnity insurance should be dictated by who your lender. It would differ for example between Santander and Barnsley Building Society. Conveyancing solicitors as opposed to borrowers take out such insurances.
My fiancee and I are spending time looking at flats in Long Hanborough and I am about to put in an offer. Is it premature to have a solicitor in place? I am planning to take a mortgage with Nationwide.
You should start obtaining conveyancing quotes from solicitors ASAP. After you have chosen your lawyer and once your offer is accepted you can instruct them to work for you and pass their details on to the selling agent. As you are taking out a mortgage with Nationwide, make sure you remember to check that your lawyer is on the Nationwide conveyancing panel.
Having digested plenty of mortgage guides, I note that they all recommend that you should get your house surveyed prior to buying it. When I asked my local Long Hanborough solicitor - who is on the Barclays conveyancing panel - on this she said they don't do this and I need to contract an independent surveyor. Is that normal?
Barclays will need an independent valuation of the property. Your lawyer will not arrange this. Usually Barclays will appoint their own surveyor to do this, and you will have to pay for it. Remember that this is a valuation for mortgage purposes and not a survey. You may wish to consider appointing your own Long Hanborough surveyor to carry out a survey or prepare a home buyers report on the property. It is up to you to satisfy yourself that the property is structurally sound before you buy it. If the survey or report reveals that building work is needed, you should tell your solicitor. You may wish to renegotiate with the seller.
A colleague suggested that where I am buying in Long Hanborough I should ask my conveyancer to carry out a Neighbourhood, Planning and Local Amenity Search. What does it cover?
This is a search is usually included in the estimate for your Long Hanborough conveyancing searches. It is not a small document of more than thirty pages, listing and detailing significant information about Long Hanborough around the property and the people living there. It incorporates an Aerial Photograph, Planning Applications, Land Use, Mobile Phone Masts, Rights of Way, the local Housing Market, Council Tax Banding, the type of People living in the area, the dominant type of Housing, the Average Property Price, Crime details, Local Education with maps and statistics, Local Amenities and other useful information about Long Hanborough.
Are there common problems that you come across in leases for Long Hanborough properties?
Leasehold conveyancing in Long Hanborough is not unique. All leases are individual and drafting errors can sometimes mean that certain sections are missing. For example, if your lease is missing any of the following, it could be defective:
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Clauses dealing with recovering service charges for expenditure on the building or common parts. A duty to insure the building
A defective lease can cause issues when trying to sell a property primarily because it impacts on the ability to obtain a mortgage on the property. Lloyds TSB Bank, Virgin Money, and Barclays Direct all have very detailed conveyancing instructions when it comes to what is expected in a lease. If a mortgage lender believes that the lease is problematic they may refuse to provide security, forcing the purchaser to withdraw.
I purchased a basement flat in Long Hanborough, conveyancing formalities finalised in 2005. Can you let me have an estimated range of the fair premium for a lease extension? Corresponding properties in Long Hanborough with a long lease are worth £181,000. The average or mid-range amount of ground rent is £55 invoiced annually. The lease ceases on 21st October 2074
With 50 years left to run the likely cost is going to range between £32,300 and £37,400 plus professional fees.
The suggested premium range above a general guide to costs for extending a lease, but we cannot give you the actual costs in the absence of comprehensive due diligence. Do not use this information in a Notice of Claim or as an informal offer. There are no doubt additional concerns that need to be considered and you obviously want to be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. Neither should you move forward placing reliance on this information before getting professional advice.