My husband and I are looking to purchase a flat in Sawtry and are in fact using a Sawtry conveyancing practice. Within the last couple of days our property lawyer has sent a preliminary report and documents to look through in anticipation of exchanging contracts shortly. Alliance & Leicester have this morning contacted us to inform me that they have now hit a problem as our Sawtry conveyancer is not on their conveyancing panel. Is this a problem?
When purchasing a property with the benefit of a mortgage it is usual for the purchasers' solicitors to also act for the mortgage company. 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 Quality 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 Sawtry lawyers, in which case it will likely add costs, and it will likely delay the transaction as you are adding another lawyer into the mix.
Forgive me if this question is silly but I am unexperienced as FTB of a two bedroom flat in Sawtry. Do I collect the keys to the premises on the completion date from my conveyancer? If so, I will find a High Street conveyancing solicitor in Sawtry?
On the day of completion you do not need to attend the conveyancers office in Sawtry. Conveyancing lawyers for you will electronically transfer the purchase money to the vendor’s conveyancers, and shortly after the monies have arrived, you will be able to pick up the keys from the property Agents and start moving into the property. Usually this happens early afternoon.
A friend pointed out to me me that in buying a property in Sawtry there could be various restrictions affecting the ability to carry out external changes to a property. Is this right?
There are anumerous of properties in Sawtry which have some sort of restriction or requirement of consent to carry out external changes. Part of the conveyancing in Sawtry should determine what restrictions are applicable and advising you as part of a ROT that should be sent to you.
Planning on purchasing a house in Sawtry. I have received an online quote from a licenced conveyancer, which states: "There will be no charge for dealing with the Building Society if you are obtaining a mortgage". I take this to mean that there will be no additional fee if the solicitor is on the Bank of Ireland conveyancing panel. I wanted to make sure it means there will be no additional fees for dealing with the mortgage.
They are simply saying that the cost for acting for the lender is included in the fee being quoted. It is worth you checking that the Sawtry lawyer is on the Bank of Ireland conveyancing panel.
I have been told that property searches are a common reason for obstruction in Sawtry house deals. Is that correct?
The Council of Property Search Organisations (CoPSO) released conclusions of research by MoveWithUs that conveyancing searches do not feature amongst the common causes of hindrances in the conveyancing process. Searches are unlikely to be the root cause of slowing down conveyancing in Sawtry.
I'm buying my first flat in Sawtry with a mortgage from Skipton Building Society. The sellers would not budge the amount so I negotiated 6k of extras instead. The estate agent told me not disclose to my conveyancer about this extras as it will put at risk my mortgage with the bank. Do I keep my lawyer in the dark?.
All lenders require a Disclosure of Incentives Form from the developer 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.
A conveyancing firm handled my conveyancing in Sawtry half a dozen years ago and was holding my deeds but has now closed – What can I do to retreive these?
Deeds, as such, no longer exist as most homes in Sawtry are registered digitally at Land Registry. If you need to establish ownership or are selling or refinancing your solicitor will need to obtain up to date copies of the register from the Land Registry in any case.
If you feel there may be other documents or you have any other queries please e-mail your request with details of the transaction and documents you need to filerequest@clc-uk.org. The CLC will let you know what information they have and any additional information they may need before they are in a position to identify and send the documents to you. Following an intervention it may take some time for the CLC to access archived files and documents, but your request will be actioned with reasonable haste.