Willinstructing a Washington conveyancing practice make the ownership transfer smoother?

In the main conveyancing practitioners in your area will have strong connections with your local authority, which can help with your Washington conveyancing searches that your solicitor will require. It also helps if they have existing rapport with the Local Land Registry Office your area Washington, other lawyers in the location and Washington selling agents.

A friend advised me that in buying a property in Washington there could be a number of restrictions as to what one can do in terms of external changes to a property. Is this right?

There are a number of properties in Washington which have some sort of restriction or requirement of consent to execute external changes. Part of the conveyancing in Washington should determine what restrictions are applicable and advising you as part of a ROT that should be sent to you.

I have paid off my mortgage with Nottingham. I assume I don't need a Washington solicitor on the Nottingham panel to discharge the mortgage at the Land Registry. Am I right?

If you have finished paying off your Nottingham mortgage, they may send you evidence showing that you have paid it off. Alternatively they may notify the Land Registry directly. The Land Registry need to see this evidence before they will remove the Nottingham mortgage from the register. Nottingham, and any evidence they send you, will determine the action you need to take. In cases where no conveyancer is acting for you and you have paid off your mortgage:

1. but are not moving to another property
2. where Nottingham has sent the Land Registry the discharge electronically, and
3. Nottingham has instructed the Land Registry to do so

I recently had an offer agreed on an apartment in Washington. My financial adviser pressured me to appoint their lawyer. I paid an advanced payment of £175. A few days later, the solicitor contacted me embarrassingly acknowledging that they were not on the Santander 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 Santander 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 purchased my apartment on 12 November and my personal details is yet to be on the land registry website. Any reason for this? My conveyancing solicitor in Washington expressed confidence that it should be dealt with inside ten days. Are titles in Washington particularly slow to register?

There is nothing unique about conveyancing in Washington registration formalities. As opposed to being determined by geographic area, timeframes can differ according to the party submitting the application, whether there are errors and whether the Land registry communicate with any third parties. At present roughly 80% of such applications are fully addressed within 12 days but occasionally there can be extensive hold-ups. Historically registration is effected once the buyer has moved in to the property thus registration formalities is not typically primary concern but where it is urgent that the the registration takes place urgently then you or your solicitor could contact the land registry and explain the circumstances.

I opted to have a survey done on a house in Washington ahead of instructing solicitors. I have been told that there is a flying freehold element to the property. Our surveyor advised that some banks may not give a mortgage on this type of house.

It varies from the lender to lender. HSBC has different instructions for example to Halifax. If you contact us we can investigate further with the relevant lender. If you lender is happy to lend one our lawyers can assist as they are used to dealing with flying freeholds in Washington. Conveyancing can be more complicated and therefore you should check with your conveyancing solicitor in Washington to see if the conveyancing will be more expensive.

Is there a reason that Washington conveyancing fees are higher for leasehold and freehold properties?

Inevitably there is more work involved in leasehold conveyancing. Washington has many leasehold properties. There is more paperwork involved in the purchase: for example, the lease and leasehold information (including current service charge, ground rent and buildings insurance details) obtained from the freeholder or managing agents. There are strict criteria that the lease must meet in order to be acceptable to a mortgage company. If it does not meet these requirements, the lease must be amended, which can involve additional expense for the seller.