My partner and I are planning to acquire a home in Ashton and have instructed a Ashton conveyancing practice. Within the past 48 hours our property lawyer has forwarded the sale agreement to be signed with a detailed report in anticipation of exchanging contracts shortly. Bank of Ireland have this afternoon contacted us to advise us that there is now an issue as our Ashton solicitor is not on their approved list of lawyers. Please explain?
When purchasing a property with mortgage finance it is normal for the purchasers' solicitors to also represent the mortgage company. 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 lender and see if they can apply for membership of their conveyancing panel, but if that is not viable they will instruct their own lawyers to represent them. You don't have to instruct a firm on the bank's conveyancing panel as you are at liberty to use your preferred Ashton lawyers, in which case your legal fees may increase, and it may delay matters as you have another set of people involved.
A friend advised me that if I am purchasing in Ashton I should carry out a Neighbourhood, Planning and Local Amenity Search. Can you explain what the purpose of this search is?
This is a search is occasionally quoted for as part of the standard Ashton conveyancing searches. It is not a small document of more than thirty pages, listing and detailing important information about Ashton around the property and the people living there. It incorporates an Aerial Photograph, Planning Applications, Land Use, Mobile Phone Masts, Rights of Way, the Ashton Housing Market, Council Tax Banding, the demographics of People living in the area, the dominant type of Housing, the Average House Prices, Crime statistics, Ashton Education with plans and statistics, Local Amenities and other useful information regarding Ashton.
I am buying a new build house in Ashton benefiting from help to buy. The developers would not budge the price so I negotiated 6k of extras instead. The house builders rep told me not disclose to my conveyancer about this extras as it would jeopardize my loan with the bank. Is this normal?.
All lenders require a Disclosure of Incentives Form from the builder of any new build, converted or renovated property, It is available online from the Lenders’ Handbook page on the CML website. CML form is completed and handed to the lender's surveyor when the inspection is done.
Lenders have different policies on incentives. Some accept none at all, cash or physical, while others will accept cash incentives up to 5%.
Hard to understand why the representative of a builder would be suggesting you withold information from a solicitor when all this will be clearly visible on forms the builder has to supply to its solicitor, the buyer's solicitor and the surveyor.
Due to the input of my in-laws I had a survey completed on a house in Ashton in advance of retaining solicitors. I have been told that there is a flying freehold overhang to the house. My surveyor advised that some mortgage companies will not issue a loan on a flying freehold premises.
It depends who your proposed lender is. HSBC has different instructions for example to Halifax. If you call us we can check via the appropriate bank. If you lender is happy to lend one our lawyers can help as they are used to dealing with flying freeholds in Ashton. Conveyancing can be more complicated and therefore you should check with your conveyancing solicitor in Ashton to see if the conveyancing will be more expensive.
I have been Googling for Ashton conveyancing quotes online. Can I be assured that all the Ashton practices that are identified on your website are on the lender conveyancing panel?
The solicitor and licensed conveyancing practices listed on our site have advised us that they are on the mortgage company panel and agreed to advise us to take down their listing in the event of removal off of the lender panel. To date we have not been informed by either a lender or a member of the public that the data about a specific Ashton firm being on the lender conveyancing panel is incorrect.