Free Professional Conveyancing Advice

Hi Luke,

im in the process of looking for a house to buy and i want to have a good conveyancing solicitor on standby to take on my purchase. Are there any tips you could give me when looking for a good conveyancing solicitor? ive heard so many disaster stories with rogue solicitors where they just end up messing their customers around.

thanks a lot
Tim

Tim

There are basically 2 types of conveyancers high street and volume.

High Street - Your local solicitor with one or two offices. Offers 1 on 1 advice. Unfortunately to make ends meet a lot of high street firms have to multi discipline i.e. your solicitor may be drafting someones will or representing someone in court so may not always be available to speak to. High Street firms also tend to be more pricy. Finding the right high street firm is best done by word of mouth. Find out from your friends and relatives whether they can recommend a good solicitor.

Volume firms - the big multi office firms. A lot of people refer to these as conveyancing factories as they churn out hundreds of transactions a month. They have teams of people doing nothing but conveyancing transactions. These are big firms that invest heavily in hi tech systems to make your transaction faster. As they spend less time on the case it takes up less of their time and they can charge less than a high street conveyancer. However you may not speak to the same person every time you ring and you probably won’t have the option of seeing them face to face.

My advice is if you have a simple purchase i.e freehold property, straightforward mortgage etc go for the volume firm and save some cash. Their hi tech systems will deal with a simple case in next to no time.

If you are buying a complex new built leasehold then you may want to instruct a high street firm. That way you can sit down with your conveyancer face to face so they can explain all the complexities of the property to you.

Top Tip: Don’t listen to your estate agent’s recommendation. Most of them are on commission from conveyancers.

morning luke,

wow, that was fantastic advice. thanks alot for that. Because mine is a simple purchase, i think i’m going to work with a volume firm to save some money. i’m going to look around for firms online. but i read about the joslin rhodes situation on this site, so it’s probably a good idea that I look for online reviews before commiting to a firm.

once again thanks alot for the ace advice

Tim

Hi Luke,

I am thinking of making an offer for a leasehold flat which is a great property but has just under 70 years left on the lease. I am going to offer a fair bit below the asking price and also get an idea of how much it will cost to extend the lease. Can you offer any advice on this?

Chris

Extending the lease is an absolute necessity before buying this property. Mortgage lenders require that you have around 25-30 years plus the term of the mortgage left on the lease otherwise they will not lend on the property (so a 25 year mortgage would need to have 50-65 years left on the term of the lease). Although you may scrape through this requirement for your purchase it may be difficult to sell on.

Instead of offering a low amount and extending it yourself you could make an offer on the basis that they extend it before you buy.

Luke,

I was thinking of getting some estimates for the cost of the lease extension before going back with an offer. I may also only offer on condition that the vendor makes the arrangements for the lease extension. Will see what the costs are likely to be and take it from there. Many Thanks.

hi all,

Great site. I’m in the middle of a straight purchase but my solicitors are taking absolutely AGES to get through the paperwork. They keep feeding me excuses and blaim it on other people, but they won’t even tell me directly what the problem is. It’s causing great stress on me and my husband. Is there anything I can do in my position? Complain to anyone? Get compensation? My purchase has been going on for 6 months now and i’m not even involved in a chain. It’s crazy

Thanks a lot
regards
Tina Coley

Tina

What did the solicitors tell you they were waiting for?

6 months seems an excessively long time to complete a transaction.

If you wish to complain you first need to do it through the conveyancers themselves. If once they have responded to the complaint they are not satisfied with the result you can go to the Legal Complaints Service (www.legalcomplaints.org.uk). If they agree that your case has been handled unsatisfactorily they can order your solicitor to pay you financial compensation.

[…] Free Professional Conveyancing Advice, go to my other blog entry, where Luke, the resident expert can assist you further. Previous post […]

Hi Luke,

My girlfriend is currently stuck with a convayencer (joslin rhodes) and after reading another blog about the firm I am not filled with much confidence. they seem to be taking their time, its been about 3 months so far and we are not sure as to the state of the case.

the question is how easy would it be for her to instruct another convayencer? by this I mean would we lose all the money that we have sunk? we haven’t yet payed the convayencing fee yet so would we be liable to this? Also all the work that has been completed so far - is that all wasted effort i.e the searches etc..? and would the new convayencer be able to use the work already completed i.e. would the time to exchange be quicker taking into consideration the work that has been completed? The sellers solicitors have apparently sent over a draft contract to Joslin rhodes?

Your help would be very much appreciated.

Regards,

Waqar

Hi,

I have recently bought a leasehold flat in london for 999 years. We have now
been given the option to buy the freehold. The leasehold states at the moment
that the above flat pays 2/3 of the maintenance and we pay 1/3. I wanted to find
out if we buy the freehold will this change as we are buying the free hold 50
50.

If you could advise on this matter that woudl be greatly appreciated.

Kindest regards,

Emma.

Waqar - If you were to change conveyancer now you would have to formally disinstruct Joslin Rhodes and they would be entitled to charge you for the work you have done to date.

You would own the file of papers (searches, contracts etc) and would be entitled to have the file to pass on to your new conveyancer. However Joslin Rhodes will not release your file until you pay them and they would be perfectly within their rights to do so.

If you do instruct another solicitor then a substantial amount of extra work would need to be done to catch up. You would have to wait for Joslin Rhodes to send you the file and for your new conveyancer to read this and catch himself up. If you have a mortgage lender they would need to re issue the mortgage offer and a new contract would have to be drafted by the sellers solicitor.

If you have one utilise your estate agent to find out what is happening. Your estate agent can ring both sets of solicitors to establish where the transaction is, whereas if you rang your sellers solicitor they would be unable to speak to you. If you find out that Joslin Rhodes are nearly ready to exchange I would hold on as changing conveyancer now would only delay things further. However if they are only in the early stages then you may feel it’s the right time to cut your losses and start with a new conveyancer.

Hope this helps

Emma

The liabilities for paying service charges would be contained in the leases. I presume your buying the freehold but leaving the leases in place (in effect becoming your won landlord)as converting the property to freehold flats is not recommended.

If so the covenant to pay the service charge will remain in force as it currently stands however the person with power to enforce the covenant will change to you and the other leaseholder. If the other leaseholder does not pay their portion of the service charge then it would be difficult to enforce the covenant as the other leaseholder would be enforcing it against himself and he would probably not be very co-operative in doing so.

Thanks Luke!

I think we will just slog it out with JR. God willing things will work out in our favour.

Regards,
Waqar

Hi Luke,

I am having some difficulty purchasing a property.

A year ago I arranged through my broker and solicitor to take a mortgage out in my name with a gifted deposit from my Mum who would also be living with me. We then drew up a deed of trust to basically state that the money my Mum had put in was to be given back to her when I sold the property. This sale, however, fell through at exchange of contracts.

I am now buying a new property with a different broker and a different solicitor and I am being told by the solicitor that we cannot call my Mum’s money a gift since she will be getting it back. And that a deed of trust would not apply. My broker is also telling me that if we call the deposit (which is quite substantial) anything other than a gift the lender is likely to have an issue with it (due to the fact that if it isn’t a gift then it is effectively a loan) and not lend me the money.

Was it incorrect last year to be drawing up a deed of trust for gifted money? I seem to remember last year that they might have officially referred to it as a “deeded gift” - would this be the case or have I just made this up??

I would appreciate it if you could let me know what you think my options are?

Kind Regards

Georgina

Hi Luke
We where meant to moving home back in March however this has still not happened dur to buyers money not being available after many atempts to complete incl moving out etc etc & my solicitors have now said that they have a conflict of position after contact FSA etc & have adviced me to contact alternative legal advice do you have any view on this or what is the best course of action from here

Many Thanks
Michael Black

Georgina

Different lenders have dfferent criteria for what they will accept as a source of deposit. The first thing to do is to call your lender and advise them of the situation and ask for their advice. There may not be an official option on the application forms that covers your situation which is why your broker says it can’t be done however lenders can be quite flexible and as long as your not making payments to your mum then it shouldn’t affect your affordability and therefore shouldn’t affect the lenders decision to lend to you.

But it may also be the case that your lender doesn’t agree to your form of deposit. This is because the deed of trust gives your mum and interest in the property. Should you not pay the mortgage and be repossessed both your lender and your mum will have to be repaid out of the money and it may not be enough to cover both parties.

Michael

It sounds like your conveyancers have a conflict of interest.

As your conveyancers will be acting for you and your lender on the transaction they have to do what is in the best interests of both of you. If they cannot do this then they have to advise one party they can no longer act for them.

Make sure you ask for any fees back that have not been spent and get your file from them so you can pass it on to your new solicitors.

Thanks for your advice

Kind Regards

Georgina

I have bought a property with a friend and she is now buying me out. The are some charges involved and I was interested as to whos responsibility the charges incurred would be. I was the one who decide to dissolve the partnership and she decided to buy me out rather than sell the property.

Thanks

You should both seek seperate independant legal advice and there is no obligation on either of you to pay for the other persons costs. Unless you agree otherwise you’ll both pay your won costs seperately.

We are interested in purchasing an appartment which is located on top of four garages with entrance to the appartment being at ground level between two of the garages. The appartment is apparently freehold. Could this be classed as a flying freehold? If so what are the implications involved. Apparently the garages were sold to purchasers of houses on the development and we have been told responsibility for the garages lies with the purchaser of the appartment above them. Is this correct.

It all depends on what title the garages below the apartment have. A logical explanation would be that they are leased out to the owners of the property from the freehold of the apartment. That would explain why the apartment is freehold and why you have been told the apartment is responsible for the garages.

Hi Luke

Stumbled across your site and thought I would give it a whirl.
I have been acting for the past 17 years as a joint Trustee and Executor on behalf of my Late uncle who married shortly before his death a widow who had a son from her previous marriage. Under the terms of my uncle’s will the son is not a beneficiary and has no interest in the estate. The estate was to be held in trust until the death of his widow who in fact died about 18 month’s ago. The bulk of the estate was in stocks and shares and all this has been dealt with and funds distributed to the beneficiaries according to the will.

There remains however the widow’s house which forms the remainder of the estate. Her son (with whom the family are on friendly terms incidently)put in an acceptable offer last April to purchase and contracts were in fact signed and exchanged with the son paying £20,000 as deposit and a three month completion date was agreed.

The solicitor who has dealt with the state has served us well for many years but unfortunately retired round about the time of exchange of contracts and the matter is now been handled by his daughter who (although apparently legally qualified) seems to be mentally disarranged unable to communicate by any means and spends only about 5 minutes per week at the office. There appears to be no-one else able to assist apart from the girl who answers the telephone (if you’re lucky) who seems to know a lot more than her boss ! ! ! (perhaps they are one of the same)

The stipulated completion date has now passed and I suppose we are now legally entitled to withdraw from the sale and the son would lose his £20,000 deposit. The purchase price of the house is £225,000 and the son has £112,000 cash sitting in the bank and is reliant on the sale of another house he owns to finance the balance. A sale of this ‘other’ house has been agreed and an exchange of contracts is apparently imminent. I and my co-trustee are prepared to grant the son 8 weeks extension but one of the benecificiaries is very unhappy (’GIMME THE MONEY NOW @%#*!!’)

In order to express his good intention to proceed, the son is very willing to hand over the £112,000 immediately to the ’solicitor’ but she says she doesn’t want it and it should remain in his bank account. I am unable to find out the reason for this and I wonder if you may have any clues. Under conyancing law, would the son lose the £112,000 as well as the deposit ? -I wouldn’t have thought so but perhaps I’m wrong.
As an Executor and Trustee I feel it prudent to stick with what we’ve got and agree to an extension. The price incidently is a good one, the house being very problematical for a number of reasons and to start all over again would be a nightmare, especially in view of a predicted dodgy market around the corner.

Sorry about the lengthy background history but I got carried away and actually typing it out helps to clarify my mind.

Many thanks
Pat

Pat

Firstly the amount of deposit would be agreed and stipulated in the contract although under contract law you would still be entitled to 10% if the contracts were breached regardless of how much had already been paid.

As for forfeiting the deposit, you would have to find out if the buyer did breach one of the conditions of the contract. You mentioned that your solicitor is very slow and difficult to get hold of, it could be your solicitor that is holding things up rather than the buyers. This would mean you would be unable to keep the deposit.

Your solicitor is quite right to refuse to accept the £112000 from the buyer. Someone offering to give a solicitor a vast sum of money for ’safekeeping’ is a major warning sign of money laundering. Although from the situation you describe to me there is a valid reason for this I don’t blame your solicitor for not wanting to take the risk. In any event if the transaction were to fall through you would still only be entitled to the 10% deposit and the rest would have to be returned to the buyer.

Hope this answers your questions.

Regards
Luke

Hi Luke,

Got a question about freehold flats.

One I’m looking at is the only one in a building with a freehold. the other 5 have leaseholds and a share in the management co. that holds a freehold to the building.

What are the options (if any) for altering the title of the freehold flat?

Is there a “usual” process of change (in terms of title) to make the freehold unit mortgageable?

Hi Luke,

My husband is going to purchase our first home and we are wondering if the ownership affects mortgage lending.

Is it possible to apply for a single mortgage under his name and have both our names in the deed? We have been told we can do this through a Deed of Trust. Any idea if the lenders have issue with this?

Its mainly to protect me in the event anything happens to him. Or should we have a will drawn up instead?

Please advise. Cheers!

Hi Luke

Thank you very much for your helpful comments which in fact confirm my initial view, except the the possibilty of money laundering hadn’t occurred to me. They will allow me to speak to my co-trustee with a bit more confidence. I am most grateful.

Regards
Pat

Hi Luke,

I live in a mid-terraced house in Plymouth. The house has two floors and was
converted into two flats back in 1992. I own the ground floor flat. I am the
leaseholder on my lease, and the owner of the upstairs flat is the freeholder. I
believe this is the reverse on his lease – ie He is the leaseholder and I am the
freeholder.

The man who owns the upstairs flat intends to extend his home into the loft
space. I have checked our leases and although it states that we both share
access to the entrance hall, and must share any repair costs to the roof
structure etc – I can’t see that he actually owns the loft space that he intends
to convert into an extra bedroom.

Am I right in thinking that we jointly own the loft space – even though there is
no mention of it on the leases?

If so, who would I go to to put a value on my half of the space and how would I
go about selling it ?

Many Thanks,
Paul

Mike

Freehold flats are very common in certain areas of the country. However you may need to find a lender that will even consider a mortgage over this property. I’d ask the seller if they have had any problems with it being a freehold flat and see if they are problems you could live with.

One way to remedy this is to merge both the freehold titles and then get the landlord to grant you a lease to the flat you are buying. This will require the cooperation of all parties involved and may incur some hefty legal fees.

The seller has obviously lived there without hassle so it may be as easy to find out how they got round it and go from there.

Regards
Luke

Lynn

A deed of trust could complicate the mortgage arrangements.

For instance if the deed of trust secured a 20% contribution that you made to the purchase and you husband ownded the remaining 80% he would struggle to get a mortgage for more than that 80%.

I’ve not got much experience in wills and probate so can’t advise you on which would be the best situation for you. Sorry.

Regards
Luke

Paul

What you have is called a crossover lease. They are common in certan areas of the country but considered a defective title in other areas, for reasons such as your issue.

To resolve this matter really needs careful scrutinisation of the leases to see if they even allow for development of the roof space. You should also check his lease to see if he needs to obtain your consent to any alterations in his flat etc.

Sorry I can’t be much help on this one but crossover leases are defective titles and aren’t clear cut to deal with.

Regards
Luke

I bought a first floor two bedroomed flat in a purpose built block of
four flats which were built in the early sixties which leaves approx 60yrs on
the lease, now the owner in the flat below me and myself would like to buy the
leases from the owner but Im afraid I dont really know how to go about it
neither does th other flat owner so any advise you could give us would be
greatly appreciated

I am trying to buy a ground floor flat with a share of freehold. The freehold is shared 50/50 with the upstairs flat. I plan to renovate the ground floor flat (if I ever get my hands on it), but the joint freeholder’s solicitor is making life extremely difficult for me and the vendor. They are insisting on a “Licence for Alterations”. I had heard this only applies to commercial premises where there is a sole freeholder. Can a joint freeholder “Lord it” over the other joint freeholder like this? Can they make things so difficult that it actually obstructs the sale? We are trying to keep them sweet, but we will not agree to this. One clause in this Licence to Alter is that they want their own surveyor to come in to the other flat and oversee works…at my expense! I am not planning anything too major, just new kitchen, move the bathroom, recdorate…oh, and put in a new doorway internally (vaguely structural, I suppose, but the local council building regulator will oversee that). Any help greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Hi Luke,
Here goes….Big detached house divided into three flats, ground, first and second floor. They were converted in 1933 and they all share the freehold.
The top floor flat is in probate and will be for sale shortly.The middle floor is occupied by a lovely but feisty old lady who has lived there for 50 years. I have made an offer for the ground floor flat that has been accepted.
The sale cannot proceed until ownership of the freehold is taken over by a management company owned equally by all flats and then long leases are granted to each flat. The flats are not mortgageable until then. All parties concerned are happy for this to happen but Stamp Duty has become a sticking point. It would appear that all flat owners are liable to stamp duty on this Freehold to leashold transaction! The lady in the middle floor flat is particularly unhappy as she has no money from a sale from which to pay the stamp duty but all parties are rightly aggreived and this has stopped the sale in its tracks. Can this be correct or has someone got this terribly wrong? Several solicitors consulted think that there is no way around this without them paying the tax but surely this is hugely unjust.
Your advice would be hugely appreciated.
Regards,

Matthew

Matthew

I can’t really comment without seeing all the documents transferring ownership and knowledge of how this is being done.

Stamp duty is deduced from the value of the transaction. In freeholds it is done on the value of the sale in leaseholds it is done on th value of the sale and future ground rent. Presumably as the lady in the middle flat already owns the property she won’t be paying for the flat and so won’t be paying any consideration for it. So stamp duty will be calculated on the ground rent. Unless the ground rent is particularly high it shouldn’t attract any duty. However there may be other factors that I’m not aware of affecting this.

If you’ve had several solicitors look over the paperwork and all come to the same conclusion then I don’t think theres any way out I’m afraid.

Sorry I couldn’t be of more help.

Regards
Luke

Hi Luke,

I’m hoping you can give me some valuable advice. My husband and I are currently in the process of selling our leasehold flat. When the purchasers solicitor made a number of enquiries at the start of the process they referred to a defective lease. After much investigation on my part as my solicitor just waited for post to arrive rather than picking up the phone, I found out that when the lease was extended prior to my husband and I buying the property, the previous lease was not referred to and as such the lease was defective. It has taken my solicitor about 8 weeks to get round to asking the appropriate questions to the freeholder, my home move solicitors, and as such has caused us considerable delay. I am now waiting to hear how much the free holder will charge to draft the deed of variation and how long it will take. It has caused us a lot of financial difficulty as the flat is currently vacant, we have since moved and are renting awaiting this sale. The purchasers are still on board and eager to move in but their solicitor is saying that their mortgage requires this deed of variation. I guess my main question is really is it possible to exchange with a clause in there saying that we will complete in 3 weeks or so when the deed of variation has been completed? Its been 6 months so far and we are going into our 7th month, I’m sure the main reason for the delay is our solicitor and this is something I will be taking up with them. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

It’s possible to exchange with the defect in place. However you have to get the buyer and their solicitor to agree to this. There is no legal issue here. If your buyer is willing to exchange on that basis the it is up to them.
I suggest you approach the buyer and find out what guarantees they would want. It may be that they exchange with completion to take place once the deed of variation is agreed. They will probably want some form of deadline for you to complete it in so if you don’t they can walk away without incurring any penalty.

Hey Luke,

you breifly mentioned a crossover lease above. i’m in the middle of a purchase and my solicitor said that the property i’m buying is on a crossover lease. He didn’t explain it very well. I was just wondering if you could give me more details, as much as you know about a crosslease. are there any advantages/disadvantages? should they be avoided

many thanks
lorenzo

Hi Luke,

Just came across your site and have a question. Wonder if you can help me.

My father died in June this year. He left my mother with an interest only mortgage of approx. £68,000. My brother, sister and I are wondering if we jointly paid my mother’s monthly mortgage payments, could we get the house put in our 3 names? If so, are there any legal fees to pay for this? What is the legal term for what we are suggesting? Would her mortgage lender accept this? Would there be any stamp duty to pay? What we would like is to be joint owners of the house and of course our mother would continue to live there.

I’d be very grateful for any advice you can give.

Many thanks

Jules

Hi Luke,

Been reading your website great tips.
Here goes, I am in the middle of buying a Freehold Property, but later found out that the property still has a lease on it. Due to me buying the Freehold and Lease the Mortgage lender has refused to release the money due to not enough years left on lease and that I may sell the lease left on house.
I want the house for myself and have no intension of selling it. know I have advised my solicitors to merge the Lease and Freehold together getting rid of the Lease on it or applying restrictions to the contract which will not allow me to sell the lease to satisfy the mortgage lender. But this is taking ages and I don’t know if I am being messed about by my solicitors as whoever I have spoken too said this is a simple process. Please advise

Hi Luke

I am trying to sell my house which I have lived in for just over three years, four sales have fallen through so far because the surveys have discovered that it is of a steel frame construction. It seems that most mortgage lenders will not lend against this type of house and this is scaring people off. This is the first we knew about the issue, when we bought the house we took out a mortgage with Northern Rock (and have since remortgaged with Halifax) and the steel frame was never pointed out to us and did not appear on either survey. The people we bought the house from also failed to mention this to us, if they had we would not have bought the house.
We don’t seem to be able to sell the house and I think that the only way we will sell is if we dramatically reduce the price to make it worth while for someone to buy it, although we will obviously lose money doing this as we have to pay back our outstanding mortgage.=20

Is there anything we can do legally? Should someone have legally informed us of the unusual construction when we bought it?

I would appreciate any advice you can give me.

Regards
Amanda

The tricky predicament:- 8 years ago I bought a flat in a terrace conversion. The owners of the flat that I bought were at the time the sole freeholder for the whole property (the house was converted into two flats). They offered to sell me a share of freehold which I accepted. My solicitor at the time explained that the way the freehold would be split meant that I would own the freehold to my neighbours flat and the original owners of my flat would continue as freeholders, their share being my flat.

The problem is that they have disappeared. Initially they moved out of London, and then subsequently contacted the owners of the other flat in the house to see if they would be interested in buying the other share of freehold since they were intending on emigrating. We have tried to contact them on several occasions at their last given address in the UK but to no avail. Having spoken with the current owners of the other flat in the house they would be more than happy to buy the other share of freehold if a situation arose where they could. We are now wondering what provision the law might have for absentee freeholders, and if there is a process through which my neighbours might be able to obtain the other share of freehold which it would seem is actually the freehold over my own flat?

A bit of a tricky one… any advice would be greatly appreciated.

My partner and I are buying a property and just organising the mortgage and conveyancers. I am giving a substantial deposit towards the house which means that the mortgage taken is reduced. The mortgage is to be under both our names, however the repayments will be made by my partner as I am not working and about to have our baby. What I need to understand is how best should we set this up. I have read lots of information about joint tenancy and tenancy in common and not sure which is the best to go for. We both need to draw up a will and also I believe I should draw up a trust deed to protect my large deposit if for any reason we weren’t together anymore. What would you advise in these circumstances?

Regards

we have moved out of our home then put it on the market. we got a buyer who was an investor and keen to buy knowing there was no chain. our solicitors has since got all the paperwork and documents needed but the draft contract has been with the buyers solicitor for three weeks and we havent heard anything since. how long should this process take at the most.