This question may be naive but I am unseasoned as a 1st time purchaser of a two bedroom flat in King's Cross. Do I pick up the keys to the premises on completion from my lawyer? If this is the case, I will instruct a local conveyancing solicitor in King's Cross?
On the day of completion you will not be required to go to the conveyancers office in King's Cross. Conveyancing lawyers for you will transfer the purchase money to the seller's solicitors, and shortly after the monies have arrived, you should be called to pick up the keys from the selling Agents and start moving into the property. Usually this happens between 1 and 3pm.
I had a mortgage agreed in principle with UBS. King's Cross conveyancing solicitors were selected. How long does it take for UBS to forward the offer to the lawyer?
There is no definitive answer here. Have UBS done the survey? Have you informed UBS as to your lawyers' details and checked that your lawyers are on the UBS conveyancing panel? Sometimes it can take as long as six weeks for a mortgage offer to be issued.
After weeks of negotiation I have agreed a price on an apartment in King's Cross. My mortgage broker recommended their conveyancers. I paid an advanced payment of £200. A few days later, the property lawyer called me embarrassingly acknowledging that they were not on the TSB conveyancing panel. Am I right in thinking that I should be due a refund?
You should be able to recover this from the law firm if they were not on the TSB panel. They should have asked at the outset which lender you were obtaining a mortgage with. An important lesson to readers of this site is to check that the lawyers are on the appropriate lender panel.
I completed on my flat on 8 October and my personal details is yet to be registered. Any reason for this? My conveyancing solicitor in King's Cross expressed confidence that it should be dealt with inside ten days. Are titles in King's Cross particularly slow to register?
There is nothing unique when it comes to conveyancing in King's Cross registration formalities. Rather than based on location, timescales can differ depending on the party submitting the application, whether it is in order and if the Land registry communicate with any 3rd persons or bodies. At present in the region of three quarters of submission are fully dealt with within two weeks but some can be subject to extensive delays. Historically registration is effected after the purchaser has moved in to the property therefore registration formalities is not usually an essential issue but where it is urgent that the the registration takes place urgently then you or your solicitor must contact the land registry and explain the circumstances.
Am I better off to use a King's Cross conveyancing solicitor who is local to the property I am hoping to buy? I have an old university friend who can handle the legal work however her office is 200kilometers drive away.
The benefit of a local King's Cross conveyancing firm is that you can drop in to sign paperwork, hand in your ID and pester them where appropriate. They will also have local insight which is a bonus. However it's more important to get someone that will do a good and efficient job. If other friends have used your friend and they were happy that should outweigh using an unknown King's Cross conveyancing lawyer solely due to them being King's Cross based.
I work for a long established estate agent office in King's Cross where we have experienced a few leasehold sales jeopardised due to short leases. I have received contradictory information from local King's Cross conveyancing firms. Please can you confirm whether the owner of a flat can instigate the lease extension process for the buyer?
As long as the seller has owned the lease for at least 2 years it is possible, to serve a Section 42 notice to kick-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 sit tight for 2 years to extend their lease. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment has to be done before, or at the same time as completion of the disposal of the property.
Alternatively, it may be possible 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.
After years of dialogue we simply can't agree with our landlord on how much the lease extension should cost for our flat in King's Cross. Does the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal have jurisdiction to calculate the appropriate figures?
Where there is a absentee freeholder or where there is dispute about what the lease extension should cost, under the relevant statutes you can apply to the LVT to determine the premium.
An example of a Lease Extension decision for a King's Cross premises is Flat 89 Trinity Court Grays Inn Road in February 2013. the Tribunal found that the premium to be paid by the tenant on the grant of a new lease, in accordance with section 56 and Schedule 13 to the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 should be £36,229. This case was in relation to 1 flat. The unexpired term was 66.8 years.
My husband and I are planning to purchase a 2 bedroom flatin King's Cross with a mortgage from a mortgage company. We have a solicitor in King's Cross but our bank inform us now that he's not on their "panel". We have to appoint one of the our mortgage company panel firms or stay with our King's Cross conveyancer and pay for one of their panel ones to represent our bank. We feel as though this is unjust; Can we not simply insist that our bank use our King's Cross lawyer?
No, not really. The lender home loan issued is subject to its terms and conditions, one of which will be that lawyers will on the bank's conveyancing panel. Until recently, most lenders had large numbers of law firms on their panels, including most conveyancing solicitors in King's Cross : a borrower 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. A further alternative is for your lawyer to apply to be on the conveyancing panel for your mortgage company.