My wife and I are planning to buy a house in Dersingham and have appointed a Dersingham conveyancing practice. Within the last couple of days our lawyer has sent a preliminary report and documents to look through with a view to exchanging next week. Alliance & Leicester have this morning contacted us to advise us that there is now an issue as our Dersingham lawyer is not on their approved list of lawyers. What do we do from here?
When purchasing a property with mortgage finance it is standard 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 mortgage company 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 are not legally obliged to appoint a law firm on the lender’s conveyancing panel and you may continue to use your own Dersingham solicitors, in which case it will likely add costs, and it will likely delay the transaction as you have another set of people involved.
Will conveyancers request money on account when it comes to conveyancing in Dersingham?
If you are buying a property in Dersingham your solicitor will ask you to provide them with funds to cover the the cost of the conveyancing searches. Normally this is needed to cover the fees of the conveyancing searches. If any down payment is as part of the purchase price then this should be needed shortly ahead of exchange of contracts. Any further balance that is due should be sent to your lawyer a few days ahead of the completion date.
The Dersingham conveyancing firm that just started acting on my purchase in Dersingham have suddenly closed. I only went with them because I needed a lawyer on the Yorkshire BS conveyancing panel and my family Dersingham lawyer was not. I paid them 275 plus VAT in advance. What should be my next steps?
Assuming that you have an Estate Agent in the equation then let them know straight away so that they advise the vendors that there may be a slight delay due to reasons beyond your control. Most sellers would be sympathetic and urge their lawyer to send a new set of papers to your new solicitors. You should appoint new lawyers that are on the Yorkshire BS conveyancing panel and notify the lender. If you have paid over any money, it will hopefully be held by the SRA as money in an intervened firm's bank accounts is transferred to the SRA. Then, the SRA or the intervention agent looks at the intervened firm's accounts to work out who the money belongs to. To claim your money you will need to contact the SRA. If the SRA cannot return money you are owed from the firm's bank accounts, or if they can only return part of the money, you can apply to the Compensation Fund for a grant. Your new solicitors should be in a position to assist.
My uncle has recommend that I use his conveyancing solicitors in Dersingham. Should I choose my own conveyancer?
Much as we are happy to recommend a Dersingham conveyancing lawyer it’s preferable to select a conveyancing practitioner is to get feedback from friends or relatives who have experience in using the solicitor that you are are thinking of instructing.
We are about to complete on the purchase a property in Dersingham but as a consequence of wreckage from the recent storms I have agreed recompense from the current proprietors of £3k taking the form of a reduction in the price. I had intended this to be dealt with as part of the conveyancing process but the bank will not permit this. Should they have been approached?
The conveyancing practitioner being on a lender conveyancing panel is duty bound to inform the mortgage company of any variations to the purchase figure. In the event that you prohibit your conveyancing practitioner to disclose the price change to your bank then they would need to refrain from acting for you and the lender.