I have asked my solicitor a few times if they have read the lease/ covenants. I’ve even emailed a copy and said I don’t see it in there. They won’t answer me directly whether they have checked the deeds, even though I asked the second time with bullet points questions. I expressly have asked for a clear answer (it was only 3 Q that could be yes or no, not a massive email!)
This is their exact reply to when I asked: ‘can I confirm you have read the deeds? I can’t see this in the deeds and your last email sounded like you have only asked the management company if they want consent?’ I attached the deeds to this email and highlighted a section. The reply is grammatically bad enough to be confusing (I didn’t ask for a partial transfer in my email for context):
‘good morning , The transfer is not of part your name is going to be added to the whole. Plus the consent is needed hence the freeholder has requested the fee.’
It doesn’t answer my express questions, ‘hence the freeholder…’ still sounds like they are saying they have not read the deeds but are relying on the word of the management company.
In the last email I also attached for them an advice pack from the residents association explaining how to transfer title/ sell the property .It’s detailed.
For a previous matter we needed freeholder consent (building works which is in the lease), the old management company just emailed us a brief letter.
I’ve had a further reply since my OP telling me to request the consent myself and send it to her. Though it is listed as something included in what I’ve paid.
It just feels really bad to chuck more money at it at this point. I have a gut feeling they could ask for more and more, or just simply say they can’t do it. They’ve already needed me to provide a lot.
The management company also haven’t clarified if I pay the £350 what I get (only they will ‘speak’ with their solicitor). I asked for clarify the charge of £350 would result in consent being provided. I’d expect that is a yes/no answer, but they also have refused to answer.
My solicitor is just asking constant questions.
Like I said ‘I would like to add my husbands name to the property so we are joint owners. This is to be equal joint owners, not shared or unevenly split- both on the title’
She then basically copy pasted a description of joint tenants/ tenants in common to me and asked me to pick the wording. I’ve felt over the emails the onus has on me to explain everything, not her giving legal advice or applying expertise. Also on me to action every step, facilitate contacts etc.
Contact is awful- for example when emailing the female owner of the management company she’s got their back up addressing her as ‘dear sirs’ in every email I’ve seen when the woman is signing off ‘Lucy’ and the name of the MC company is her female name. It’s just so bad, like a teenager writing texts half the time.
The first question I got from the solicitor was to send the deeds… it just feels overall not right at all, they’ve sent so far 14 messages. They aren’t often aren’t grammatical and they were mostly answered with the original quote. When I employed a solicitor to do this before it just happened, no input from me at all! This one for example said they couldn’t contact the freeholder and therefore couldn’t proceed - I had to Google contact details and give information for them to proceed.
Sorry that’s a long rant- in summary I feel I’ve paid for a simple transfer of a title in august and it’s turned in months of questions and confusion. This disordered post probably is reflective of how I feel the situation is. I’ve paid a solicitor for this before and it was pretty much two contacts: one to explain what I needed, one to say it was done.