My wife and I are hoping to buy a property in Dewsbury and are in fact using a Dewsbury conveyancing firm. Within the past 48 hours our conveyancer has forwarded the sale agreement to be signed with a detailed report with the expectation that exchange is imminent. Virgin Money have this evening contacted us to advise us that there is now an issue as our Dewsbury solicitor is not on their conveyancing panel. Is this a problem?
Where you are buying a property requiring a mortgage it is normal for the purchasers' solicitors to also represent the purchaser's lender. 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 property lawyer should contact your mortgage company 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 don't have to instruct a firm on the lender’s conveyancing panel and you may continue to use your own Dewsbury solicitors, in which case it will likely add costs, and it may delay matters as you have another set of people involved.
My wife and I intend to remortgage our penthouse in Dewsbury with Nottingham. We have a son 19 who lives at home. Our solicitor has asked us to disclose anyone over the age of 17 other than ourselves who reside at the property. The solicitor has now sent a form for our son to sign, giving up any rights in the event that the flat is repossessed. I have two questions (1) Is this form unique to the Nottingham conveyancing panel as he never had to sign this form when we bought 3 years ago (2) Does our son by signing this extinguish his entitlement to inherit the property?
First, rest assured that your Nottingham conveyancing panel solicitor is doing the right thing 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 Nottingham. This is solely used to protect Nottingham 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 Nottingham 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.
Finally the sale completed on my house in Dewsbury last July yet the purchaser is SMS messaging daily to say her solicitor needs to hear from mine. What should have happened following completion?
Following your house sale your lawyer should send the transfer documentation and all of the paperwork to the buyer’s conveyancer. Depending on the transaction, your solicitor should also evidence that the home loan has been discharged to the purchasers conveyancers. There are no post completion tasks just for conveyancing in Dewsbury.
I have been told that property searches are the number one cause of delay in Dewsbury house deals. Is that correct?
The Council of Property Search Organisations (CoPSO) released conclusions of research by MoveWithUs that conveyancing searches do not feature amongst the common causes of delays in the conveyancing process. Searches are not likely to be the root cause of holding up conveyancing in Dewsbury.
I have todaydiscovered that Wolstenholmes have closed. They conducted my conveyancing in Dewsbury for a purchase of a freehold house 12 months ago. How can I be sure that the property is in my name in the name of the previous owner?
The quickest method to see if the premises is in your name, you can make a search of the land registry (£3.00). You can either do this yourself or ask a law firm to do this for you. If you are not registered you can seek help from one of a number of Dewsbury conveyancing specialists.