My wife and I are planning to buy a flat in Great Harwood and have instructed a Great Harwood conveyancing firm. Within the past 48 hours our property lawyer has sent a preliminary report and documents to look through with the expectation that exchange is imminent. Aldermore have this morning contacted us to inform me that there is now an issue as our Great Harwood conveyancer is not on their approved list of lawyers. Is this a problem?
When purchasing a property with the benefit of a mortgage it is conventional for the purchasers' lawyers to also act for 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 lender 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 bank's conveyancing panel as you are at liberty to use your preferred Great Harwood lawyers, in which case your legal fees may increase, and it will likely delay the transaction as you have another set of people involved.
Can I use your services to locate a Conveyancing solicitor in Great Harwood even if I’m not buying or selling a house, for example if I intend to buy a shop in Great Harwood with a mortgage from Accord Mortgages Ltd?
The service is predominantly there to help choose residential conveyancing solicitors in Great Harwood but we have recorded at the end of this page a few Great Harwood commercial conveyancing firms. You should speak with the solicitors directly to establish if they can also act for Accord Mortgages Ltd
The Great Harwood conveyancing solicitors that just started acting on my house acquisition in Great Harwood have suddenly closed. I only went with them because I needed a lawyer on the Aldermore conveyancing panel and my family Great Harwood lawyer was not. I paid them funds in advance. What do I do now?
If you have an estate agent involved then let them know immediately so that they advise the vendors that there may be a slight delay due to reasons beyond your control. Hopefully they will be sympathetic and urge their lawyer to send a new set of papers to your new solicitors. You should appoint new lawyers that are on the Aldermore conveyancing panel and notify the lender. If you have paid over any money, it will hopefully be held by the SRA as money in an intervened firm's bank accounts is transferred to the SRA. Then, the SRA or the intervention agent looks at the intervened firm's accounts to work out who the money belongs to. To claim your money you will need to contact the SRA. If the SRA cannot return money you are owed from the firm's bank accounts, or if they can only return part of the money, you can apply to the Compensation Fund for a grant. Your new lawyers should be in a position to help.
I used Stirling Law several years past for my conveyancing in Great Harwood. Now, I need my files but the law firm has closed. What do I do?
You should call the Solicitors Regulatory Authority (SRA) to assist in tracing your conveyancing files. They can be contacted on please contact on 0870 606 2555. Alternatively, you should use their online form to make an enquiry. You will need to provide the SRA with as much information as possible to assist their search, including the name and address in Great Harwood of the conveyancing firm of solicitors you previously hired, the name of conveyancing solicitor with whom you had dealings, and the date on which you last had dealings with the firm.
Do I cancel my mortgage payments with Nationwide once a completion date for my sale in Great Harwood has been set?
No, you must keep meeting any mortgage payments to Nationwide until the mortgage is redeemed from the proceeds of sale as part of your Great Harwood conveyancing.