The Maida Hill conveyancing solicitors that I appointed last week on my purchase in Maida Hill have without warning closed. I only went with them because I had to have a lawyer on the TSB conveyancing panel and my preferred Maida Hill lawyer was not. I paid them £170 in advance. What do I do now?
If you have an estate agent involved then let them know immediately so that they can let the sellers know that there may be a slight delay due to the problems encountered. 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 TSB 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 solicitors may be able to assist.
Despite weeks of looking the Title Certificate and documents to our home can not be found. The conveyancers who dealt with the conveyancing in Maida Hill 5 years ago no longer exist. What do I do?
Assuming the title is registered the details of your proprietorship will be held by the Land Registry with a Title Number. It is easy to carry out a search at the Land Registry, identify your property and secure current copies of the property title for a small fee. If the property is Leasehold then the Land Registry will in most cases hold a file duplicate of the Registered Lease and again, a copy can be ordered for twenty pounds.
I am buying my first flat in Maida Hill with a loan from Nottingham Building Society. The builders would not move on the amount so I negotiated £7000 of extras instead. The sale representative told me not disclose to my conveyancer about the extras as it will adversely affect my loan with the lender. Do I keep my lawyer in the dark?.
All lenders require a Disclosure of Incentives Form from the builder of any new build, converted or renovated property, It is available online from the Lenders’ Handbook page on the CML website. CML form is completed and handed to the lender's surveyor when the inspection is done.
Lenders have different policies on incentives. Some accept none at all, cash or physical, while others will accept cash incentives up to 5%.
Hard to understand why the representative of a builder would be suggesting you withold information from a solicitor when all this will be clearly visible on forms the builder has to supply to its solicitor, the buyer's solicitor and the surveyor.
I opted to have a survey done on a property in Maida Hill prior to appointing solicitors. I have been told that there is a flying freehold aspect to the property. My surveyor has said that some lenders tend refuse to grant a mortgage on a flying freehold home.
It varies from the lender to lender. Santander has different instructions for example to Halifax. If you call us we can look into this further via the appropriate lender. If you lender is happy to lend one our lawyers can help as they are accustomed to dealing with flying freeholds in Maida Hill. Conveyancing may be slightly more expensive based on your lender's requirements.
I am contemplating instructing an online conveyancer ahead of a Maida Hill conveyancing practice. Should I ‘stay local’?
There are advantages of being able to pop in to a local Maida Hill conveyancing solicitor for example
- signing documents on short notice
- getting one on one explanations of issues that you need help with
- the ability to complain if things need to addressed
When comparing fees, look carefully for hidden extras. The majority decent Maida Hill high street solicitors give an all-inclusive price. Many online companies seem to offer discounted prices, yet have burried 'extras' in the fine print.