My wife and I are hoping to purchase a house in Sketty and have instructed a Sketty conveyancing practice. Within the last couple of days our property lawyer has sent a preliminary report and documents to look through with the expectation that exchange is imminent. TSB have this afternoon contacted us to advise us that they have now hit a problem as our Sketty solicitor is not on their conveyancing panel. Is this a problem?
Where you are buying a property with the assistance of a mortgage it is usual for the purchasers' lawyers to also represent the purchaser's lender. 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 solicitor should contact your bank 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 and you may continue to use your own Sketty solicitors, in which case it will likely add costs, and it may delay matters as you have another set of people involved.
My fiance and I intend to remortgage our penthouse in Sketty with Nationwide. We have a son 19 who lives at home. Our solicitor has asked us to disclose anyone over the age of 17 other than ourselves who lives in the flat. The solicitor has now sent a form for our son to sign, waiving any legal rights in the event that the property is forfeited by the lender. I have two concerns (1) Is this form unique to the Nationwide conveyancing panel as he did not need to sign this form when we purchased 4 years ago (2) In signing this form is our son in any way compromising his right to inherit the property?
First, rest assured that your Nationwide conveyancing panel solicitor is doing the right thing as it is established procedure for any occupier who is aged 17 or over to sign the necessary Consent Form, which is purely to state that any rights he has in the property are postponed and secondary to Nationwide. This is solely used to protect Nationwide if the property were re-possessed so that in such circumstances, your son would be legally obliged to leave. It does not impact your son’s right to inherit the apartment. Please note that if your son were to inherit and the mortgage in favour of Nationwide had not been discharged, he would be liable to take over the loan or pay it off, but other than that, there is nothing stopping him from keeping the property in accordance with your will or the rules of intestacy.
is it true that all Sketty conveyancing solicitors on the Coventry BS conveyancing panel are governed by the SRA?
As a firm of solicitors, in order to be on the Coventry BS approved list of solicitors they would need to be overseen by the Solicitors Regulatory Authority. Many lenders do list licenced conveyancers on their panel in which case such firms would be governed by the CLC.
The mortgage over my property is with Principality for my property in Sketty. Conveyancing has been completed some time ago. Should I wish to rent out my property and do not currently have a buy-to-let mortgage do I need to remortgage to a BTL mortgage or inform Principality?
You must advise Principality prior to renting your property as this is likely to be a breach of Principality’s mortgage conditions. It may be that Principality will allow you to rent out your former home without needing to switch to a buy-to-let mortgage but some lenders will add a surcharge to your mortgage rate to reflect the higher risk. You should contact Principality directly. You need not do this via a Principality conveyancing panel solicitor.
I am selling my apartment. I had a double glazing fitted in December 2010, but did not receive a FENSA certificate or Building Regulation Certificate. My purchaser’s lender, Aldermore are being difficult. The Sketty solicitor who is on the Aldermore conveyancing panel is happy to accept ‘lack of building regulation’ insurance but Aldermore are insisting on a building regulation certificate. Why do Aldermore have a conveyancing panel if they don't accept advice from them?
It is probably the case that Aldermore have referred the matter to their valuer. The reason why Aldermore may not want to accept indemnity insurance is because it does not give them any reassurance that the double glazing was correctly and safely installed. The indemnity insurance merely protects against enforcement action which is very unlikely anyway.
I purchased my apartment on 8 August and the transaction details are still not registered. Should I be concerned? My conveyancing solicitor in Sketty expressed confidence that it should be formalised in a couple of weeks. Are titles in Sketty particularly slow to register?
As far as conveyancing in Sketty is concerned, registration is no faster or slower than anywhere else in the country. Rather than based on location, timeframes can differ depending on who lodges the application, whether there are errors and whether the Land registry need to notify any third parties. At present roughly three quarters of submission are fully dealt with within two weeks but occasionally there can be extensive hold-ups. Historically registration is effected after the buyer has moved in to the premises thus post completion formalities is not always an essential issue yet where it is urgent that the the registration takes place urgently then you or your conveyancer must speak with the land registry and explain the circumstances.
I am looking into buying my first house which is in Sketty and I am already nervous. I couldn't find anything specific about Sketty. Conveyancing will be needed in due course but do you know about the Sketty area? or perhaps some other tips you can share?
Rather than looking online forget looking online you should go and have a look at Sketty. In the meantime here are some basic statistics that we found
We have AIP from Britannia who indicated that they will lend up to £218k. When do we need to instruct a practitioner for conveyancing? Sketty is where we are buying.
It would be wise to instruct a lawyer now requesting that they open a file for you. This will enable: 1) the selling agent to send out the Sales Memo to all parties 2) the seller’s conveyancer to send out the draft agreement. That being said, do not ask your lawyer to order searches until you receive your valuation report from Britannia and you are content to move forward.