Property solicitor

[MummytoGeorgie]

I'm on maternity and I miss my work!

I'm a property solicitor, if anyone has any questions I would be more than happy to give some free advice to do with conveyancing i.e moving home, enquiries, searches, title documentation etc (no landlord tenant as that's not my area of expertise).

TIA

@samosamo hi Samo, hope you are well. When you have a deed of trust, on completion you can either have it registered at the land registry OR don't. I would always recommend having it registered on the title deeds at the land registry post completion (your sol will action this) as then there is a record. If you were to break up and it became sour (you never know) and the deed became "lost" then there would be no original signed doc to evidence the shares if not registered with the land reg.

If you were to break up the deed would still apply, it relates to how the sale proceeds would be distributed whether or not you break up is irrelevant.

Good luck with the purchase :-)

Thank you!!!

@ineedaholidayandwine the plan edged red shows the legal boundary so first your solicitor will need to establish if the dog leg is part of the property. If it is then the plan could be wrong and may need changing depending on what your lender says.. They'll need to check if the dog leg part is registered under a different title number and have a separate plan in which case, if it belongs to the sellers then this can easily be transferred to you with the main parcel of land (the red edged land in the pic).

If it is unregistered and does form part of the land and is incorporated into the garden then I would definitely ask the plan to be amended as the plan is wrong.. if it's separated by a fence and is a separate piece of land (the dog leg) the sellers will need to provide you with a statutory declaration sworn (to advise that this is their land, they've used it for X amount of years and never been asked by any third party that they can't use the land and haven't been asked to pay a sum to any third party to use it) and your solicitor can register it on completion depending on how long they've lived there (has to be 12 years in order to get it registered).

If they haven't lived there for 12 years then they can also provide an indemnity policy as you will not be able to get full registration on the land and then you can register it when it reaches 12 years... for eg. If the sellers have been there only 10 years you can register it at the land registry after you have been there for 2 years providing the sellers statutory declaration and your own to the land reg in order to get title absolute on the land.

As well, your solicitor may need to write to your lender to advise them depending on what the situation is as the valuation may have been undertaken on the basis that the land is/is not included. If the lender carried out a desktop valuation they would only be looking at the plan that you have shown above, which is incorrect.

This is something that you need urgent answers on as if the plan is required to be changed then this can cause delays in the transaction.

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Hi OP! I'm currently in the process of buying my first house. The chain ends with the property our vendors are purchasing. We viewed the property and put our offer in at the end of jan, with all searches back by end of feb, survey done and mortgage approved by end of March.

For the last 6 weeks or so the conveyancers have been going back and forth with the same 6 enquiries, taking about two weeks on average to review the responses and send their replies back - is this usual?

We were hoping to be in the house by the end of June but when I tried to chase them up yesterday I was told that it could take them another week and a half to review the responses to the enquiries they've had and even then there could be some more back and forth! And they're not willing to even discuss provisional dates with us until all the enquiries are resolved so now I'm worrying we won't be in by when we hoped to! How long would you think it's likely to take between resolution of enquiries and exchange/completion? Thanks so much!

@yma123 Hi, thanks for your message! Sorry to read it's taking so long for you! What are the 6 enquiries? Is it your solicitor that is raising them or your vendors purchasers solicitors?

All solicitors are different, whilst I action all enquiries and emails within 48 hours when working, some solicitors take a week or so to respond which is painstakingly slow but unfortunately, it can be usual.

Once all enquiries are satisfied, the solicitor will need to prepare and send the final report to the client and all documentation (contract, transfer, mortgage deed etc) to the client to sign.. this will need to be done by your solicitor for you and your vendors solicitor for their purchase.

Timescales really do vary as some solicitors are more proactive than others but I would say maximum time 2 weeks to exchange from when enquiries are satisfied. Anything more IMO is unreasonable.

Thank you, we called our solicitor first thing, I'm desperately hoping it's something simple as there are no other issues.

[quote MummytoGeorgie]@yma123 Hi, thanks for your message! Sorry to read it's taking so long for you! What are the 6 enquiries? Is it your solicitor that is raising them or your vendors purchasers solicitors?

All solicitors are different, whilst I action all enquiries and emails within 48 hours when working, some solicitors take a week or so to respond which is painstakingly slow but unfortunately, it can be usual.

Once all enquiries are satisfied, the solicitor will need to prepare and send the final report to the client and all documentation (contract, transfer, mortgage deed etc) to the client to sign.. this will need to be done by your solicitor for you and your vendors solicitor for their purchase.

Timescales really do vary as some solicitors are more proactive than others but I would say maximum time 2 weeks to exchange from when enquiries are satisfied. Anything more IMO is unreasonable.

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Amazing Thankyou so much!
Honestly no have no idea who actually raised the enquiries or what they are about - our solicitors haven't been very forthcoming with info, pretty sure useless really! Thanks for your help

Hi MummytoGeorgie may I ask a question? My partner and I bought our current house over 3 years ago. We asked that it be registered as tenants in common in unequal share with a declaration of trust. Unfortunately our solc registered us as joint tenants but I didn't notice until it was too late to follow up with her.

My question is - I've been reading the LR pages and breaking the joint tenancy seems easy enough to do but it says that we must have a licensed conveyancer do the unequal share/declaration of trust part. Is this true or have I misunderstood?

I'd like to put this in place at the same time as we write our wills (we're currently intestate due to becoming civil partners last year) but I'm not sure whether to do the property part first, then the wills or vice versa.

Do you have any advice please? Many thanks.

@Waspie hi waspie, I'd be in the mind to go back to the solicitor that made the cock up in the first place and ensure that they rectify the same without any charge as it was their error.

Severing the joint tenancy can be done by yourself at the land registry with the appropriate forms and assuming you have the declaration of trust you can get it resigned and dated in the presence of a solicitor who can witness the signatures.

You don't need a solicitor to severe the joint tenancy but you might need one to draft it if you haven't got it.

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[quote MummytoGeorgie]@Evecob Hi Eve! Thanks for your message. I am surprised this has only just come up if you were due to exchange on 28th why has this not been dealt with right at the outset of the transaction. (That's what I would first ask your solicitor).

The person/company who has the benefit of
The rent charge can remove it at the land registry but it does take time and what with delays at the land reg at the moment I would expect it to take weeks if not months.

The rent charge will only need to be removed if your lender requires it. Even if the developer has advised that they are not going to collect the rent charge the law is that rent charges can be collected at any time and be backdated for example, if in 10 years time the person who benefits from the rent charge decides they want paying for it they can claim back from when the property was built so for you as a buyer it is risky and it may also make the pool of potential buyers smaller when you come to sell the property at a later stage.

Indemnity insurance could possibly be an option but I do not think an indemnity insurer would indemnify the rent charge with it being so new, they are usually happy to indemnify against historical rent charges that haven't been collected over many many years but again if your solicitor manages to find an insurer to indemnify the charge then they will just need to obtain your lenders consent to the indemnity policy, It really is down to the lender.

It is definitely a sticky situation but one that needs dealing with as a matter of urgency due to the possible timescales at the land registry so I would in the first instance ask your solicitor if they have referred the rent charge to Your lender and if so what is their stance, secondly is there indemnity insurance available from an insurer anyway?

If a developer agrees to remove the rent charge then your solicitor can do so with the appropriate signed documentation from them but as you are buying it would usually come from the sellers solicitors. The builder may need separate representation possibly and I would expect your solicitor to charge extra too for removal of the charge.

In order to facilitate exchange at this stage your solicitor may be able to get all the signed required documentation ASAP from the sellers solicitors and remove the rent charge at the same time as when they register you as the new owners at the land registry post completion to prevent any delay in exchange and completion but again this would need to be confirmed and agreed by your lender.

I do hope that you manage to get it sorted because rent charges can be headache and as you say, a lengthy process.

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Thank you very much for your detailed answer. You seem to know more than our solicitor ajd our sellers solicitor put together!

Our solicitor did in fact enquire about the rent charges 2 months ago but our sellers solicitor didn't look into it properly. Just kept saying there were no charges....until this was the last enquiry left and we took it upon ourselves to find out!!!

Our solicitor has asked our sellers solicitor to talk to the builder to ask if he is happy to have it removed. Thats as far as we have got. I guess I need to ask him to speak to nationwide then.

I dont suppose you have any idea on nationwides stance on these matters?

Thanks so much for your reply

@Waspie sorry just saw your other question, I would sort the house first and then do your Wills. X

@Evecob Hey, so the lenders handbook advises general stuff to this and it states:

5.15.2a
If different from 1.11, contact point if there are apparent problems with the management company:
Issuing Office
IMPORTANT ESTATE RENT CHARGES:

Where the charge relates to an historic charge, is not related to services being provided and has not been collected for 12 years or more, then an appropriate indemnity policy should be obtained to protect us.

Where a charge has been collected in the last 12 years or relates to the costs of services being provided, it will be acceptable providing that the collector/recipient of the charge must give the property owner and any lender notice of arrears and give them 2 months’ notice to remedy the breach. Additionally, if further action is taken regarding non-payment the collector/recipient must notify the lender of such action. If the agreement doesn’t include these details a deed of variation is required.

Further, in the event of non-payment the agreement must either:

1. Specifically prohibit the collector/recipient from being able to create a lease over the property, or
2. If a lease is created the agreement must clearly state that on payment of: all arrears, costs of collecting arrears, all legal costs including court costs and costs of creating and surrendering the lease, then the lease must be surrendered. All costs must be reasonable. The agreement must specifically state no premium can be charged to surrender the lease.

If the agreement doesn’t include these details a deed of variation is required.

Where a deed of variation is required, an indemnity policy is not an acceptable alternative.

The above requirements will only apply to a statutory rent charge and not where the payment obligation is created by a personal positive covenant/restriction.

The first paragraph doesn't apply. Second paragraph refers to if a charge is unpaid which isn't relevant but by reading that I would say that they would require a Deed of Variation to be entered into with the person who benefits from the charge in order to remove it. It's quite specific so your solicitor will need to refer it specifically to your lender. Sorry it doesn't provide much help :-( x

MummytoGeorgie - wonderful, thank you so much I have the declaration of trust from our previous property so I could use this as a template and then do as you suggest and get it witnessed by our solicitor.

I hope you enjoy the rest of your maternity leave particularly now that activities for you and your baby are opening up more and more. Plus, hopefully, some sort of decent weather happening soon!

@Waspie yes indeed just use that as a template!

And thank you so so much! You take care 🤗 x

Hi, thanks again for your help,

You mentioned if the builder gives us signed documentation we can get the rent charges removed when they register us on land registry upon completion, is this going to be our most likely option, and quickest? If so, and the builder agrees it this week, is this something that we can sort within the next couple of weeks? (If lender agrees?)

Also, the signed documentation, is it the builder writing a letter to say he is happy to have rent charges removed from our title basically?

@Evecob a deed of variation will need to be entered into and signed by the parties to the original transfer. It may just be the developer, it may be more than the developer I don't know as I haven't seen the deed. Then the solicitor can register the deed with the land registry post completion. Deed of V is basically a legal document which will need to be drafted (sellers solicitors usually do this) and agreed and then signed by the developers and the parties to the transfer that the rent charge is mentioned within. You're welcome x

@Evecob that is the quickest way but lenders consent can take a while to come back too so they need to get the ball rolling ASAP.

[quote MummytoGeorgie]@Evecob a deed of variation will need to be entered into and signed by the parties to the original transfer. It may just be the developer, it may be more than the developer I don't know as I haven't seen the deed. Then the solicitor can register the deed with the land registry post completion. Deed of V is basically a legal document which will need to be drafted (sellers solicitors usually do this) and agreed and then signed by the developers and the parties to the transfer that the rent charge is mentioned within. You're welcome x[/quote]
Thanks so much.

I jist spoke to our seller about this, to try and get ball rolling, he mamaged to speak to his solicitor who says its not a deed of variation ??? As the road is still there and that isnt changing??

@Evecob the charge can be removed by deed of variation. Sometimes rent charges are just there for nothing, sometimes they count towards maintenance of something... If the rent charge is for maintenance then other provisions can get inserted into the deed of variation as well to cover this point.

The sellers solicitors from experience will most likely try and get out of doing a DOV as they are the ones that have to draft it and most solicitors don't like doing them.

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How much do you earn, what is your annual target and what hours do you work? - sort of joking, I know this isn't what your thread is about, but I'm curious

[quote MummytoGeorgie]@Evecob the charge can be removed by deed of variation. Sometimes rent charges are just there for nothing, sometimes they count towards maintenance of something... If the rent charge is for maintenance then other provisions can get inserted into the deed of variation as well to cover this point.

The sellers solicitors from experience will most likely try and get out of doing a DOV as they are the ones that have to draft it and most solicitors don't like doing them.

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Yes our sellers solicitor is useless to put it politely!!

Thank you very much, I will let our seller know.

@Hk24498 haha that made me laugh 😆 I don't have a target as such but I have 100-200 cases at any one time!

Hours are 9-5 but I'd say 3 days a week I'll work until 8/9 odd night 10/11 and catch up on emails over one day on the weekend it's pretty demanding! Ha

Hi I'm thinking of moving

Obviously get my own home on the market but should I not view other properties until I have an offer on mine?

Or what's the best way to do this? The type of property I will move to would need to be suitable for older less mobile people but at the very cheapest end of that, bungalows are expensive. I feel my current home will sell reasonably well to a family but I'm more concerned about losing my onward home and how I best approach it so I'm not always being beaten to ones I like/can afford

@Titofeline

Hey!

It's really up to you which way round you do it but if you found somewhere to purchase before you sold... the agent may not put forward the offer until the chain below was complete. For example, if you put an offer in and there was a second offer from a third party for the same property who had found a buyer then the agent would encourage the seller to go with the buyer who has already got a buyer for their sale.

I would recommend getting your property on the market.. see what interest there is and keep an eye out for things you like and maybe do some viewings to get a feel for what you realistically can get in the current market.

You never know, you might get a first time buyer/Invester who doesn't mind waiting a few weeks until you secure somewhere for your onward purchase.

Good luck :-) x

This is a lovely and heartwarming thread! I have sent you a PM, @MummytoGeorgie, I hope that’s ok