My husband and I are hoping to purchase a house in Canary Wharf and are in fact using a Canary Wharf conveyancing firm. Within the last couple of days our property lawyer has forwarded the sale agreement to be signed with a detailed report with the expectation that exchange is imminent. Britannia have this morning contacted us to inform me that they have now hit a problem as our Canary Wharf lawyer is not on their approved list of lawyers. Is this a problem?
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 Accreditation Scheme. Your solicitor 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 bank's conveyancing panel and you may continue to use your own Canary Wharf solicitors, in which case your legal fees may increase, and it may delay matters as you have another set of people involved.
My partner and I changing mortgage lender for our apartment in Canary Wharf with Yorkshire BS. We have a son 18 who lives with us. Our solicitor requested us to identify any adults other than ourselves who lives in the flat. Our lawyer has now e-mailed a document for our son to sign, giving up any rights in the event that the flat is forfeited by the lender. I have two concerns (1) Is this document specific to the Yorkshire BS conveyancing panel as he never had to sign this form when we bought 5 years ago (2) Does our son by signing this giving up his entitlement 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 Yorkshire BS. This is solely used to protect Yorkshire BS 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 Yorkshire BS 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.
I'm buying a new build house in Canary Wharf benefiting from help to buy. The sellers would not budge the amount so I negotiated £7000 of extras instead. The sale representative advised me not to tell my lawyer about this side-deal as it will jeopardize my loan with the lender. 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.
In my capacity as executor for the will of my grandfather I am selling a house in Monmouth but reside in Canary Wharf. My solicitor (who is 260 miles from merequires that I execute a stat dec ahead of completion. Can you recommend a conveyancing practitioner in Canary Wharf who can attest and place their company stamp on the document?
Technically speaking you should not need to have the documents witnessed by a conveyancing solicitor. Normally or notary public or qualified solicitor will suffice regardless of whether they are based in Canary Wharf
I am employed by a long established estate agency in Canary Wharf where we have experienced a number of leasehold sales derailed as a result of short leases. I have been given inconsistent advice from local Canary Wharf conveyancing solicitors. Could you shed some light as to whether the seller of a flat can commence the lease extension formalities for the purchaser on completion of the sale?
Provided that the seller has owned the lease for at least 2 years it is possible, to serve a Section 42 notice to start the lease extension process and assign the benefit of the notice to the purchaser. This means that the proposed purchaser need not have to wait 2 years to extend their lease. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment has to be done prior to, or simultaneously with completion of the disposal of the property.
An alternative approach is to extend the lease informally by agreement with the landlord either before or after the sale. If you are informally negotiating there are no rules and so you cannot insist on the landlord agreeing to grant an extension or transferring the benefit of an agreement to the purchaser.
Following years of dialogue we simply can't agree with our landlord on how much the lease extension should cost for our flat in Canary Wharf. Does the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal have jurisdiction to calculate the appropriate figures?
You certainly can. We are happy to put you in touch with a Canary Wharf conveyancing firm who can help.
An example of a Freehold Enfranchisement case for a Canary Wharf flat is 12, 14 & 16 Hull Close in May 2010. the Tribunal determined that the premium payable for the acquisition of the freehold to the subject premises was the sum of £18,300 This case related to 3 flats. The unexpired term was 101.61 years.