Our son-in-law is in the process of securing a house that has just been built in Grays with a mortgage from Santander. His lawyer has advised him of a delay in receiving the ‘Disclosure of Incentive Form’. Who needs to receive the form?
The form is intended to provide information to the main parties involved in the purchase. Therefore, it will be provided to your son’s lawyer who should be on the Santander conveyancing panel as a standard part of the process, and to the surveyor when requested. The developer will be required to start the process by downloading the form and completing it. The form will therefore need to be available for the valuer at the time of his or her site visit. The form should be sent to the Santander conveyancing panel solicitor as early as possible, in order to avoid any last minute delays, and no later than at exchange of contracts.
Despite weeks of looking the Title Certificate and documents to my house can not be found. The solicitors who dealt with the conveyancing in Grays 5 years ago no longer exist. Will I be able to sell the house?
Nowadays there are duplicates made of almost everything, and your conveyancer will know exactly where to locate all the relevant documentation so you can buy or sell your property without any difficulty. Where copies can’t be found, your solicitor may be able to arrange cover in the form of insurance or indemnities protecting you against future claims on the property.
Over the last few months I have been searching for a ground for flat up to £195,000 and identified one round the corner in Grays I like with a park and railway links in the vicinity, the downside is that it only has 51 years unexpired on the lease. There is not much else in Grays for this price, so just wondered if I would be making a mistake acquiring a lease with such few years left?
If you require a home loan the remaining unexpired lease term will be a potential deal breaker. Discount the price by the anticipated lease extension will cost if not already taken into account. If the existing proprietor has owned the property for a minimum of 2 years you could request that they start the process of the extension and then assign it to you. You can add 90 years to the current lease with a zero ground rent applied. You should consult your conveyancing lawyer concerning this matter.
There are only 68 years remaining on my flat in Grays. I now want to extend my lease but my freeholder is absent. What should I do?
If you qualify, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can submit an application to the County Court for an order to dispense with the service of the initial notice. This will mean that your lease can be lengthened by the Court. You will be obliged to demonstrate that you have used your best endeavours to track down the freeholder. On the whole an enquiry agent should be useful to conduct investigations and to produce an expert document to be accepted by the court as proof that the freeholder can not be located. It is advisable to get professional help from a solicitor both on devolving into the landlord’s disappearance and the vesting order request to the County Court overseeing Grays.
We have reached the end of our tether in trying to purchase the freehold in Grays. Can the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal adjudicate on premiums?
in cases where there is a absentee freeholder or if there is disagreement about what the lease extension should cost, under the relevant statutes it is possible to make an application to the LVT to make a decision on the premium.
An example of a Lease Extension matter before the tribunal for a Grays flat is Various @ Colombus Square in January 2012. the Tribunal calculated the premiums to be paid for new leases for each of the flats in Mariners Walk to be £3822 and the premium to be paid for the new lease of 2 Knights Court to be £4439. This case related to 13 flats. The unexpired residue of the current lease was 76 years.
When it comes to my conveyancing in Grays should I be paying VAT on the following: (1) Land reg fee on purchase (2) Pre - completion search fee (3) SDLT E submission on purchase (4) Bank TT fee
(1) Land reg fee on purchase - No (2) Pre - completion search fees -No, (such conveyancing searches are HMLR ones and means £4 and possibly £2 bankruptcy per name on your mortgage) (3) SDLT E submission on your purchase - There is no VAT on Stamp Duty. However if the firm is charging a stamp duty e-submission fee as part of their services - some Grays conveyancers do - that will incur VAT(4) Bank transfer fee - Yes it is for the property lawyer's time in submitting the funds this way.