It is is a decade since I purchased my house in Havering-atte-Bower. Conveyancing lawyers have recently been retained on the sale but I am unable to track down my deeds. Is this a major issue?
Don’t worry too much. Firstly there is a chance that the deeds will be kept by the lender or they may still be with the lawyers who acted in your purchase. Secondly in most cases the title will be recorded at the land registry and you will be able to establish that you are the registered owner by your conveyancing solicitors obtaining up to date copy of the land registers. Almost all conveyancing in Havering-atte-Bower involves registered property but in the unlikely event that your property is not registered it is more tricky but is resolvable.
The Havering-atte-Bower conveyancing solicitors that I appointed last week on my purchase in Havering-atte-Bower have without warning shut down. I only went with them because I needed a lawyer on the Coventry BS conveyancing panel and my family Havering-atte-Bower lawyer was not. I paid them money in advance. What should be my next steps?
Assuming that you have an Estate Agent in the equation then inform them straight away so that they can let the sellers know that there may be a slight delay due to reasons beyond your control. Most sellers would 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 Coventry BS 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 may be able to help.
We are buying a terrace house in Havering-atte-Bower. The intention is to carry out an extension to the side at the house.Will legal work on the property involve investigations to determine if these alterations are permitted?
Your property lawyer will review the deeds as conveyancing in Havering-atte-Bower can occasionally reveal restrictions in the title deeds which prevent certain alterations or need the consent of another owner. Some additions need local authority planning consent and approval under the building regulations. Certain areas are designated conservation areas and special planning restrictions apply which frequently prevent or affect extensions. It would be sensible to check these things with a surveyor ahead of any purchase.
We expect to receive a DIP from Nottingham this week so we know how much we could potentially offer as otherwise we only have online calculators to go by (which aren't taking into account credit checks etc). Do Nottingham recommend any Havering-atte-Bower solicitors on the Nottingham conveyancing panel, or is it better to go independently?
You will need to appoint Havering-atte-Bower solicitors independently although you'll need to choose one on the Nottingham conveyancing panel. The solicitor represents both you and Nottingham through the process.
I have paid off my mortgage with UBS. I assume I don't need a Havering-atte-Bower lawyer on the UBS panel to discharge the mortgage at the Land Registry. Am I right?
If you have finished paying off your UBS mortgage, they may send you evidence showing that you have paid it off. Alternatively they may notify the Land Registry directly. The Land Registry need to see this evidence before they will remove the UBS mortgage from the register. UBS, and any evidence they send you, will determine the action you need to take. In cases where no conveyancer is acting for you and you have paid off your mortgage:
- but are not moving to another property
- where UBS has sent the Land Registry the discharge electronically, and
- UBS has instructed the Land Registry to do so
Do I need to pay for insurance to cover chancel repairs when acquiring a residence in Havering-atte-Bower?
Unless a prior acquisition of the premises took place after 12 October 2013 you could take it that conveyancing practitioners carrying out conveyancing in Havering-atte-Bower to continue to advocate a chancel search and or insurance against a claim.
We are planning to purchase a four bedroom apartmentin Havering-atte-Bower with a residential mortgage from a mortgage company. We have a solicitor in Havering-atte-Bower however our bank advise he's not on their "panel". It seems we have little choice but to instruct from the our lender panel firms or stay with our Havering-atte-Bower solicitor and incur the extra legals for one of their panel ones to represent them. This seems very unfair; is there anything we can do?
No, not really. The mortgage company mortgage issued is subject to its terms and conditions, one of which will be that solicitors will on the mortgage company's conveyancing panel. in the past, most lenders had large numbers of law firms on their panels, including almost all conveyancing solicitors in Havering-atte-Bower : a mortgagee could choose one for themselves, as long as it was on the lender's panel. The lender would then simply instruct the borrower's lawyers to act for the lender, too. You can use your lender's panel lawyers or you could borrow from another lender which does not restrict your choice. Another option that might be available is for your lawyer to apply to be on the conveyancing panel for your bank.