My wife and I are hoping to purchase a house in Shirley and have instructed a Shirley conveyancing firm. Within the last couple of days our lawyer has forwarded the sale agreement to be signed with a detailed report with a view to exchanging next week. Lloyds TSB Bank have this evening contacted us to advise us that they have now hit a problem as our Shirley solicitor is not on their approved list of lawyers. Please explain?
When purchasing a property with the benefit of a mortgage it is conventional 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 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 lender’s conveyancing panel and you may continue to use your own Shirley solicitors, in which case it will likely add costs, and it will likely delay the transaction as you are adding another lawyer into the mix.
Do lenders provide you with an approved list of Shirley conveyancing solicitors? How do you know who is on the Co-operative conveyancing panel?
Shirley conveyancing firms themselves provide us confirmation that they are on the Co-operative conveyancing panel as opposed to being supplied with a list from Co-operative directly.
A colleague suggested that where I am purchasing in Shirley I should carry out a Neighbourhood, Planning and Local Amenity Search. Can you explain what the purpose of this search is?
This is a search is usually quoted for as part of the standard Shirley conveyancing searches. It is not a small report of about 40 pages, listing and detailing significant information about Shirley around the property and the people living there. It incorporates an Aerial Photograph, Planning Applications, Land Use, Mobile Phone Masts, Rights of Way, the local Housing Market, Council Tax Banding, the demographics of People living in the area, the dominant type of Housing, the Average House Prices, Crime details, Local Education with maps and statistics, Local Amenities and other useful information concerning Shirley.
I moved into my home on 12 July and the transaction details are still not on the land registry website. Need I be worried? My conveyancing solicitor in Shirley said it would be registered in less than a month. Are titles in Shirley uniquely lengthy to register?
There is nothing unique about conveyancing in Shirley registration formalities. As opposed to being determined by geographic area, timescales can differ according to who lodges the application, whether it is in order and whether the Land registry must send notices to any interested parties. As of today in the region of 80% of such applications are completed within 12 days but occasionally there can be protracted hold-ups. Registration is effected once the new owner is living at the premises so 'speed' is not always top priority but where there is a degree of urgency associated with the registration then you or your conveyancer could communicate with the Registry to express the reasoning for the application to be prioritised.
My husband and I are a couple of weeks into a freehold purchase having been recommend to conveyancers by the selling agent to execute conveyancing in Shirley. We are not happy. Can you help me find new lawyers?
They would need to be very bad in order to consider diss instructing them. Has your loan offer been issued? If so you need to advise them of the new contact details and ensure the loan are re-sent. Your conveyancer needs to be on the lenders approved list to avoid escalating expenses and frustration. So that should be your first question of the new solicitors. The search tool can assist you in finding a bank approved solicitor for your home move in Shirley