Me and my fiance are purchasing a 2 bedroom flat in Noak Hill with a mortgage. We like our Noak Hill conveyancer, but the lender says she’s not on their "panel". It appears that we have little choice but to appoint one of the bank panel conveyancing practices or continue with our Noak Hill conveyancing practitioner and pay for one of their panel ones to act for them. This seems very unfair; can we not insist that the bank use our Noak Hill solicitor ?
No, not really. The mortgage offered to you is subject to its terms and conditions, one of which will be that lawyers will on the bank’s conveyancing panel. Until recently, most lenders had large numbers of law firms on their panels: a borrower could choose one for themselves, as long as it was on the lender's panel. The lender would then simply instruct the borrower's lawyers to act for the lender, too. You can use your lender's panel lawyers or you could borrow from another lender which does not restrict your choice. A further alternative is for your Noak Hill conveyancing lawyer to apply to be on the conveyancing panel.
My fiance and I intend to remortgage our flat in Noak Hill with Principality. We have a son 18 who lives with us. Our solicitor has asked us to disclose any adults other than ourselves who reside at the property. Our lawyer has now e-mailed a document for our son to sign, giving up any rights in the event that the flat is repossessed. I have two concerns (1) Is this form unique to the Principality conveyancing panel as he never had to sign this form when we purchased 3 years ago (2) In signing this form is our son in any way compromising his right to inherit the property?
On the face of it your lawyer has done nothing wrong as it is established procedure for any occupier who is aged 17 or over to sign the necessary Consent Form, which is purely to state that any rights he has in the property are postponed and secondary to Principality. This is solely used to protect Principality if the property were re-possessed so that in such circumstances, your son would be legally obliged to leave. It does not impact your son’s right to inherit the apartment. Please note that if your son were to inherit and the mortgage in favour of Principality had not been discharged, he would be liable to take over the loan or pay it off, but other than that, there is nothing stopping him from keeping the property in accordance with your will or the rules of intestacy.
As a novice what is the most important piece of guidance you can impart about purchase conveyancing in Noak Hill?
You may not hear this from too many lawyers but conveyancing in Noak Hill and elsewhere in England and Wales is an adversarial experience. Put another way, when it comes to conveyancing there is plenty of opportunity for friction between you and other parties involved in the transaction. For example, the seller, property agent and sometimes a bank. Choosing a law firm for your conveyancing in Noak Hill an important selection as your conveyancer is your adviser, and is the SOLE party in the transaction whose interest is to look after your legal interests and to keep you safe.
We are witnessing a distinct ongoing adversarial element to conveyancing- someone has to be at fault for the process being so protracted. You your first instinct should be to trust your conveyancer above all other players in the conveyancing process.
What happens if my lawyer’s firm is removed from the Clydesdale Solicitor panel ahead of completing my conveyancing in Noak Hill?
The first thing to point out is that, this is a very rare occurrence. In most cases even where a law firm is removed off of a panel the lender would allow the completion to go ahead as the lender would appreciate the difficulties that they would place you in if you have to instruct a new solicitor days before completion. In a worst case scenario where the lender insists that you instruct a new firm then it is possible for a very good lawyer to expedite the conveyancing albeit that you may pay a significant premium for this. The analogous situation is where a buyer instructs a lawyer, exchanges contracts and the law firm is shut down by a regulator such as the SRA. Again, in this situation you can find lawyers who can troubleshoot their way to bring the conveyancing to a satisfactory conclusion - albeit at a cost.
Various online forums that I have visited warn that are the number one cause of stalling in Noak Hill conveyancing transactions. Is there any truth in this?
The Council of Property Search Organisations (CoPSO) released conclusions of research by MoveWithUs that conveyancing searches do not figure amongst the most frequent causes of delays during the legal transfer of property. Local searches are not likely to be the root cause of holding up conveyancing in Noak Hill.