Our son-in-law is buying a house that has just been built in Deal with a mortgage from Co-operative. His solicitor has advised him of a delay in completing the ‘Disclosure of Incentive Form’. Who needs to receive the form?
The form is intended to provide information to the main parties engaged in the purchase. Therefore, it will be provided to your son’s lawyer who should be on the Co-operative conveyancing panel as a standard part of the process, and to the valuer when requested. The developer will be required to start the process by downloading the form and completing it. The form will therefore need to be available for the valuer at the time of his or her site visit. The form should be sent to the Co-operative conveyancing panel solicitor as early as possible, in order to avoid any last minute delays, and no later than at exchange of contracts.
Why do I have to pay up front for my conveyancing in Deal?
Where you are retaining lawyers for conveyancing in Deal your lawyer will ask you to provide them with monies to cover the search fees. Ordinarily this is requested to cover the fees of the conveyancing searches. If any down payment is as part of the purchase price then this will be required immediately before contracts are exchanged. Any further balance that is due will be payable a couple of days prior to the day of completion.
I have paid off my mortgage with Lloyds. I assume I don't need a Deal solicitor on the Lloyds panel to discharge the mortgage at the Land Registry. Am I right?
If you have finished paying off your Lloyds 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 Lloyds mortgage from the register. Lloyds, 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 Lloyds has sent the Land Registry the discharge electronically, and
- Lloyds has instructed the Land Registry to do so
Completion of my remortgage has taken place for my property in Deal. Conveyancing was of an acceptable standard but I feel I should register my dissatisfaction about the lender. Who do I contact should I wish to lodge a complaint?
Almost all lenders have complaints procedures. Your first point of contact should be one of the lender’s branches or the Customer Care Team at head office. In most cases complaints to a lender are sorted out very quickly. If you feel the matter is not resolved you can write to Financial Ombudsman Service, South Quay Plaza, 183 Marsh Wall, London E14 9SR who will take matters further.
After much negotiation I have agreed a price on an apartment in Deal. My mortgage broker suggested a conveyancer. I paid an on account payment of £150. A couple of days later, the solicitor contacted me embarrassingly acknowledging that they were not on the HSBC 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 HSBC 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.
My friend recommended that where I am buying in Deal I should ask my conveyancer to perform a Neighbourhood, Planning and Local Amenity Search. Can you explain what the purpose of this search is?
This is a search is occasionally included in the estimate for your Deal conveyancing searches. It is a large document of about 40 pages, listing and setting out important information about Deal around the property and the people living there. It includes an Aerial Photograph, Planning Applications, Land Use, Mobile Phone Masts, Rights of Way, the local Housing Market, Council Tax Banding, the demographics of People living in the area, the dominant type of Housing, the Average Property Price, Crime details, Deal Education with plans and statistics, Local Amenities and other useful information regarding Deal.
Just had an offer accepted on a new build apartment in Deal. Conveyancing is necessary evil at the best of times but I have never purchased a new build flat before. Can you give me some examples of some of the questions asked in new build conveyancing.
Here are examples of a few leasehold new build enquiries that you may expect your new-build leasehold conveyancing in Deal
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Will control of the Management Company (if any) be handed over to purchasers on completion of the last sale or earlier? If there are lifts in the building, please confirm that the owners of flats on the ground and basement floors will not be required to contribute towards the cost of maintenance and renewal. Please confirm the Lease plans are architect prepared. Where there is an Undertaking being granted there is the risk of forfeiture of the Headlease subject to relief if one or more of the Underlessees are willing to accept the original Head Lessee’s obligations as otherwise relief will be denied to the Underlessees. The only alternatives are the Head Lessor agreeing not to forfeit the Headlease or the Head Lessee guaranteeing to the Underlessees that it will not be in breach of the Headlease. Please supply a car parking plan.
I am on look out for some leasehold conveyancing in Deal. Before diving in I would like to find out the unexpired term of the lease.
Assuming the lease is recorded at the land registry - and 99.9% are in Deal - then the leasehold title will always include the basic details of the lease, namely the date; the term; and the original parties. From a conveyancing perspective such details then enable any prospective buyer and lender to confirm that any lease they are looking at is the one relevant to that title. For any other purpose, such as confirming how long the term was granted for and calculating what is left, then the register should be sufficient on it's own.
Leasehold Conveyancing in Deal - Examples of Questions you should ask Prior to buying
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How much is the maintenance charge and ground rent on the flat? Is anyone aware of any major works in the near future that could increase the maintenance fees? Plenty Deal leasehold properties will be liable to pay a service charge for the upkeep of the block invoiced on behalf of the landlord. Should you acquire the flat you will have to meet this liability, normally periodically throughout the year. This can differ from a few hundred pounds to thousands of pounds for large purpose-built blocks. In all likelihood there will be a ground rent to be met yearly, this is usually not a significant sum, say approximately £25-£75 but you need to enquire as occasionally it could be prohibitively expensive.