Is the fact that my solicitor in Stone is not on my bank's solicitor panel that there is a problem with the standard of her work?
It would not be wise to jump to that conclusion. There are plenty of plausible explanations. A recent report by the solicitors regulator revealed 76% of law firms surveyed had been removed from at least one lender panel. The top 5 reasons are as follows: (1) low volume of transactions (2) the solicitor is a sole practitioner (3) as part of the HSBC panel reduction (4) regulatory contact by SRA (5) accidental removal. Should you be concerned you should simply call the Stone conveyancing practice and enquire why they are no longer on the approved list for your lender.
My grandmother passed away 10 months ago and as sole heir and executor I was left the property in Stone. The house had a relatively small loan left on it of around £5k. I want to transfer the title deeds into my name whilst I re-mortgage to Coventry BS, pay off the mortgage. Is this allowed?
Given you plan to re-mortgage then Coventry BS will require that you use a conveyancer on the Coventry BS conveyancing panel. Here is link to the Land Registry online guidance around what to do when a property owner dies. This will help you to understand the registration process behind changing the details re the registered title. in your case it would appear that you are effectively purchasing the property from the estate. Your Coventry BS conveyancing panel solicitor pays the new mortgage money into the estate, the estate pays off the old mortgage, the charge is released and you become the owner and the Coventry BS mortgage is registered as a charge at the Land Registry.
Various internet forums that I have visited warn that are the number one cause of hinderance in Stone conveyancing transactions. Is there any truth in this?
The Council of Property Search Organisations (CoPSO) has noted the conclusions of a review by MoveWithUs that conveyancing searches do not feature amongst the top 10 causes of delays in the conveyancing process. Local searches are unlikely to be the root cause of slowing down conveyancing in Stone.
4 months have gone by since my purchase conveyancing in Stone completed. I have checked the Land Registry website which shows that I paid £150,000 when infact I paid £180,000. Why the discrepancy?
The price paid figure is taken from the application to register the purchase. It is the figure included in the Transfer (the legal deed which transfers the premises from one person to the other) and referred to as the 'consideration' or purchase price. You can report an error in the price paid figure using the LR online form. In most cases errors result from typos so at first glance the figure. Do report it so they can double check and advise.
Over the last few months I have been searching for a ground for flat up to £305k and found one round the corner in Stone I like with open areas and station nearby, however it's only got 61 years on the lease. I can't really find anything else in Stone for this price, so just wondered if I would be making a grave error acquiring a short lease?
If you require a mortgage that many years will be problematic. Reduce the price by the anticipated lease extension will cost if not already taken into account. If the current owner has owned the premises for at least 2 years you could ask them to commence the lease extension formalities and pass it to you. An additional ninety years can be extended on to the existing lease term and have £0 ground rent by law. You should speak to your conveyancing lawyer about this matter.
We had our home loan agreed in principle on Tuesday with our lender. We instructed a reputable conveyancer in Stone two days ago. Today, our mortgage adviser contacted us saying that the lender said that we cannot use our solicitor as they aren't on their panel. As FTB's, we had no idea that the bank had some control over our choice Is this permitted?
You are at liberty to select any property lawyer you prefer to choose including the said conveyancer in Stone nevertheless if they are not on the your bank's approved list you will have to pay additional cost so the bank can appoint their own conveyancer too. On occasion it is possible your solicitor may apply to get included on to the mortgage company panel. Do make the most of online search facilities including lenderpanel.com to find a conveyancing solcitor in Stone on the lender panel. You can go into your high street lender branch in Stone. They will know some good conveyancing solicitors in Stone on the lender panel.