My wife and I are hoping to purchase a home in Kingswood and are in fact using a Kingswood conveyancing firm. Within the last couple of days our lawyer has forwarded the sale agreement to be signed with a detailed report with the expectation that exchange is imminent. Clydesdale have this afternoon contacted us to inform me that there is now an issue as our Kingswood lawyer is not on their conveyancing panel. What do we do from here?
When purchasing a property with the benefit of a mortgage it is usual for the purchasers' lawyers to also represent the mortgage company. 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 Accreditation 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 lawyers to represent them. You are not legally obliged to appoint a law firm on the bank's conveyancing panel and you may continue to use your own Kingswood solicitors, in which case it will likely add costs, and it will likely delay the transaction as you have another set of people involved.
It is is a decade since I purchased my property in Kingswood. Conveyancing lawyers have now been retained on the sale but I can't locate the deeds. Is this a problem?
Don’t worry too much. First the deeds may be kept by your lender or they could stored with the solicitor who oversaw the purchase. Secondly in most cases the land will be recorded at the land registry and you will be able to prove you are the registered owner by your conveyancing solicitors obtaining up to date copy of the land registers. Most conveyancing in Kingswood involves registered property but in the unlikely event that your home is not registered it adds to the complexity but is not insurmountable.
Our bank has recommended solicitors on their panel based in Kingswood but I would rather instruct a conveyancing lawyer in Kingswood local to me. Can you assist?
Not all Kingswood conveyancing solicitors are approved and listed on all lender’s conveyancing panel. Do make the most of our find an approved solicitor tool to locate a Kingswood conveyancing solicitor on the on the bank panel.
Is it best to appoint a Kingswood conveyancing lawyer based in the vicinity that I am purchasing? An old friend can execute the legal formalities but her office is 200miles away.
The primary upside of using a local Kingswood conveyancing practice is that you can attend the office to sign documents, present your identification documents and pester them if necessary. They will also have local intelligence which is a benefit. However nothing is more important than finding someone that will do a good and efficient job. If you know people who instructed your friend and on the whole were content that should surpass using an unknown Kingswood conveyancing lawyer solely due to them being round the corner.
I have been looking for Kingswood online conveyancing estimates. Can I be assured that all the Kingswood firms that are listed on your site are on the bank conveyancing panel?
The solicitor and licensed conveyancing practices listed on our site have advised us that they are on the bank panel and agreed to advise us to take down their listing in the event of removal off of the mortgage company panel. To date we have not been informed by either a mortgage company or a member of the public that the data about a specific Kingswood conveyancing solicitor being on the lender conveyancing panel is not accurate.