My wife and I are looking to buy a flat in Oxton and are in fact using a Oxton conveyancing firm. Within the past 48 hours our property lawyer has sent a preliminary report and documents to look through in anticipation of exchanging contracts shortly. have this afternoon contacted us to advise us that there is now an issue as our Oxton lawyer is not on their conveyancing panel. What do we do from here?
If you are buying a property needing a mortgage it is conventional for the purchasers' solicitors to also act for 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 Accreditation Scheme. Your solicitor should contact your lender 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 don't have to instruct a firm on the bank's conveyancing panel as you are at liberty to use your preferred Oxton lawyers, in which case your legal fees may increase, and it will likely delay the transaction as you have another set of people involved.
A colleague suggested that if I am purchasing in Oxton I should ask my conveyancer to perform a Neighbourhood, Planning and Local Amenity Search. Can you explain what the purpose of this search is?
A search of this type is sometimes included in the estimate for your Oxton conveyancing searches. It is not a small document of about 40 pages, listing and setting out significant information about Oxton around the property and the people living there. It incorporates an Aerial Photograph, Planning Applications, Land Use, Mobile Phone Masts, Rights of Way, the Oxton Housing Market, Council Tax Banding, the type of People living in the area, the dominant type of Housing, the Average House Prices, Crime statistics, Oxton Education with plans and statistics, Local Amenities and other useful data concerning Oxton.
Are there restrictive covenants that are commonly identified during conveyancing in Oxton?
Restrictive covenants can be picked up when reviewing land registry title as part of the process of conveyancing in Oxton. An 1874 stipulation that was seen was ‘The houses to be erected on the estate are each to be of a uniform elevation in accordance with the drawings to be prepared or approved by the vendor’s surveyor…’
Due to the guidance of my in-laws I had a survey completed on a property in Oxton ahead of retaining solicitors. I have been told that there is a flying freehold overhang to the property. My surveyor has said that some mortgage companies tend refuse to issue a mortgage on such a premises.
It depends who your proposed lender is. Lloyds has different requirements from Halifax. Should you wish to telephone us we can check with the relevant mortgage company. If you lender is happy to lend one our lawyers can assist as they are accustomed to dealing with flying freeholds in Oxton. Conveyancing can be more complicated and therefore you should check with your conveyancing solicitor in Oxton to see if the conveyancing will be more expensive.
As co-executor for the will of my grandmother I am selling a house in Newport but live in Oxton. My solicitor (who is 260 miles from merequires that I execute a stat dec before the transaction finalising. Could you suggest a conveyancing lawyer in Oxton who can witness and place their company stamp on the document?
Technically speaking you are unlikely to be required to have the documents witnessed by a conveyancing solicitor. Normally any notary public or solicitor will be fine regardless of whether they are based in Oxton