I am hoping to receive a offer of a home loan from Santander. I intend to use a Licensed Conveyancer in West Croydon. Does the Santander Solicitor panel exclude Licensed Conveyancers?

The Santander conveyancing panel is, like many other lenders, associated to the Council or Mortgage Lenders or BSA, open to Licensed Conveyancers regulated by the CLC.

The owners of the property we are purchasing have appointed a conveyancing practitioner in West Croydon who has insisted on a exclusivity contract with a payment of 5k. Are such arrangements generally advanced for West Croydon conveyancing transactions?

There are a couple of main downsides with executing a lock out contract (also referred to as a shut-out contract) is that it can distract from making progress with the conveyancing transaction itself, so in the absence of it needing little or no negotiation then it could turn out to be a hindrance. It is not particularly popular by West Croydon conveyancing practitioners as a result. A further negative is the extent of the remedies available - a jilted purchaser should not expect to be granted injunctive relief to prevent the seller disposing of the property to an alternative purchaser, so the only remedy open via the agreement will be the recovery of abortive charges and, in rare situations, the extra payment of damages.

I was pointed in your direction by a number of property agents in West Croydon to locate a solicitor on your site. What’s the financial inducement for Estate Agents to market your site over a competitor’s?

We don’t make any referral fee for sending work to this site. We found it would be just too difficult to pay a commission because members of the public would think, ‘How come the agent getting a kickback? Why aren’t I receiving any benefit too?’ We would prefer to grow our business on genuine recommendations.

Do you have any advice for leasehold conveyancing in West Croydon with the intention of speeding up the sale process?

• Much of the frustration in leasehold conveyancing in West Croydon can be reduced where you appoint lawyers as soon as your agents start advertising the property and request that they start to collate the leasehold information needed by the purchasers’ lawyers.
A minority of West Croydon leases require Licence to Assign from the landlord. If this is the case, you should place the estate agents on notice to make sure that the purchasers obtain bank and professional references. Any bank reference will need to confirm that the buyers are financially capable of paying the annual service charge and the actual amount of the service charge should be quoted in the bank’s letter. You will therefore need to provide your estate agents with the service charge figures so that they can pass this information on to the buyers or their lawyers. If you have the benefit of shareholding in the freehold, you should ensure that you have the original share document. Arranging a replacement share certificate is often a time consuming formality and frustrates many a West Croydon conveyancing deal. Where a duplicate share is necessary, you should approach the company director and secretary or managing agents (where applicable) for this as soon as possible. If you have carried out any alterations to the property would they have required Landlord’s consent? Have you, for example installed wooden flooring? Most leases in West Croydon state that internal structural alterations or installing wooden flooring necessitate a licence from the Landlord approving such changes. If you dont have the consents in place you should not contact the landlord without checking with your lawyer in the first instance.

I own a basement flat in West Croydon. Given that I can not reach agreement with the freeholder, can the Leasehold valuation Tribunal determine the amount payable for the purchase of the freehold?

if there is a missing freeholder or where there is dispute about what the lease extension should cost, under the relevant statutes you can apply to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) to assess the sum to be paid.

An example of a Freehold Enfranchisement decision for a West Croydon premises is 29 Woodstock Road in April 2014. the Tribunal determined that the premiums to be paid into court in respect of the purchase of the freehold registered at HMLR under Title N0.SY3997 should be £7,217. This case affected 4 flats. The remaining number of years on the lease was 98 years.

I have been looking for West Croydon online conveyancing estimates. Can I be assured that all the West Croydon practices that are listed on your site are on the bank conveyancing panel?

The solicitor and licensed conveyancing practices on our directory have assured us via an online form that they are on the lender panel and agreed to advise us to take down their listing in the event of removal off of the bank panel. To date we have not been informed by either a lender or a member of the public that the data about a specific West Croydon firm being on the lender conveyancing panel is incorrect.