My fiance and I are planning to acquire a property in Aberporth and have instructed a Aberporth conveyancing firm. Within the past 48 hours our conveyancer has sent a preliminary report and documents to look through in anticipation of exchanging contracts shortly. Britannia have this morning contacted us to inform me that they have now hit a problem as our Aberporth lawyer is not on their approved list of lawyers. What do we do from here?
When purchasing a property with the benefit of a mortgage it is standard for the purchasers' lawyers 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 property lawyer should contact your bank and see if they can apply for membership of their conveyancing panel, but if that is not viable they will instruct their own solicitors to act. You are not legally obliged to appoint a law firm on the lender’s conveyancing panel as you are at liberty to use your preferred Aberporth lawyers, in which case it will likely add costs, and it will likely delay the transaction as you have another set of people involved.
My Conveyancer in Aberporth is not listed on the Godiva Mortgages Ltd Solicitor Panel. Can I still retain my prefered solicitor notwithstanding that they are not on the Godiva Mortgages Ltd approved list?
The limited options open to you here include:
- Carry on with your existing Aberporth solicitors but Godiva Mortgages Ltd will need to retain a lawyer on their list of acceptable firms. This will inevitably rack up the overall conveyancing fees and result in delays.
- Find a new practitioner to act in the conveyancing, obviously checking they are on the Godiva Mortgages Ltd panel
A colleague suggested that if I am buying in Aberporth I should ask my conveyancer to execute a Neighbourhood, Planning and Local Amenity Search. What does it cover?
This is a search is usually quoted for as part of the standard Aberporth conveyancing searches. It is not a small document of more than thirty pages, listing and detailing important information about Aberporth around the property and the people living there. It includes 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 plans and statistics, Local Amenities and other useful information about Aberporth.
Are there restrictive covenants that are commonly identified during conveyancing in Aberporth?
Covenants that are restrictive in nature can be picked up when reviewing land registry title as part of the process of conveyancing in Aberporth. 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…’
Are there any apps to help locate a Aberporth law firm on the Alliance & Leicester conveyancing panel? I drive a motor bike and am prepared to travel upto 10miles to meet the lawyer.
You can use the tool on this website. Please choose the mortgage company and your location and you will see a number of Aberporth conveyancing lawyers located nearest you. We have listed some Aberporth conveyancing firms at the bottom of this page and you can contact them to check if they are on the Alliance & Leicester panel