Frequently Asked Questions
A restrictive covenant is a private agreement between land owners where one party will restrict the use of its land in some way for the benefit of another's land.
Restrictive covenants, once agreed between the parties, are placed in the title deeds to the property. They bind the land and not the parties personally.
Your buyer is asking you to confirm that these have not been breached.
Once we receive the Buyer’s Solicitor’s enquiries, we will highlight the relevant sections on the title for you to read.
The local authority search is a search of the local authority's records, including planning, building control, highways department etc. It is a search of the subject property only.
You should hold documents from when you carried out the works or if the works are prior to your time of ownership your previous solicitor (from when you purchased) should have obtained these for you. If you do not hold these your buyer’s solicitors are asking that copies be obtained from the Local Authority. Please have a look at their website for details on how to order copies.
Once we receive the Buyer’s Solicitors enquiries, we will highlight the relevant references on the extract from the local authority search which will assist you in obtaining these documents.
The buyer solicitor has asked you to deduct money from your sale price to cover a ‘Retention’. This is not a legal issue but a commercial decision only you can take.
What is a retention?
A sum of money deducted by the buyer to cover the risk of a shortfall in ‘service charge underpayments’ covering your period of ownership but only revealed often up to a year after you move out (simply because it takes that time for the Management Company accounts to be completed, sent to their accountant, audited and certified and returned to the Management Company to issue).
What is an allowance?
You simply agree to deduct the retention figure from your sale price and forget about it.
Most clients choose this because it is cheaper in the long run, faster and cleaner. If you choose to give with a one-off allowance and not a retention I will, as goodwill, carry out the extra work for free, to amend the contract to add this extra deduction clause (called a legal ‘allowance’).
Legal indemnity insurance is obtained in order to offer protection to a buyer (and a lender) where there is a defect in the title which cannot be resolved. It often provides a quick and low-cost alternative to the work required to correct a defect which will usually cost several hundred pounds in legal fees and will take several weeks.
The premium for a legal indemnity insurance policy is paid only once, and in most cases is automatically transferred to successors in title and lasts for the life of the property.
If you are purchasing: It should be remembered, and be pointed out, that legal indemnity insurance does not remedy the insured defect, but merely offers financial compensation. You should also check each policy individually to see what actions might invalidate the cover. For all indemnity policies however, it is a condition that their existence must not be revealed to third parties.
How much will an indemnity insurance policy cost?
The premiums for indemnity insurance policies are charged on a sliding scale, depending on the value of the property, and they also vary depending on the risk insured. The cost will range from as little as £20 to as much as £300, or occasionally more for a nonstandard policy.
What will an indemnity insurance policy cover?
The answer to this question depends on the particular risk you are intending to insure, but basically indemnity insurance covers loss of value to the property and legal costs.
Lack of communication is one of the biggest complaints made to the Ombudsman about lawyers. Take your time to find a lawyer who does not work alone on your case (ask what would happen if they were out, or on holiday etc); nor choose a big team (where your case could get lost with less accountability and control). Don't be shy to ask if your lawyer will be prepared to allocate a 2 or 3 person conveyancing unit to your case, covering issues if one or other is on the phone for example.
20 working days between exchange and completion: The Law Society Conveyancing Contract states you leave 20 working days between exchange and completion dates. If you wish to amend this to a shorter time period then you can do so. However, it will involve solicitors squeezing in 20 days work into less days; for which solicitors charge an expedited fee.
Expedited: 16-20 working days: We make no charge for goodwill purposes.
Expedited: Less than 15 working days between exchange and completion: This is so short that we have to charge something. For additional work the SRA costs code allow our terms to charge an hourly rate (at £200 per hour). This could take in the region of up to two additional hours. However for goodwill we charge a one off discounted charge of between £97 to £149 (depending on how many days you leave and how busy we are). I hope this helps you. I repeat however that whilst the Law Society Contract of Sale (5th Edition) asks you to leave 20 working days we will try to meet an expedited date and we will charge a nominal discounted rate for this additional work.
Note: If you do want an expedited completion date of less than 20 working days then please let me know as soon as possible. This will allow me to check whether we can fit you in. There is a lot of additional work to be done and l will need to double check with my completion diary to ensure I can accommodate you.
We must be on your lenders panel and comply with your lenders rules during the transaction (which is stated in the CML handbook). The work involved acting for a lender imposes strict duties on the solicitor involved. Some of the duties involved are the tasks which we have listed below for you:
- Taking instructions from yourselves with regards to the mortgage.
- Receiving the mortgage offer from your lender
- Checking the mortgage conditions contained in the mortgage offer
- Reporting to you on the mortgage offer
- Reviewing the lender requirements (under CML handbook)
- Carrying out pre-contract searches required by the lender
- Carrying out enquiries required by the lender
- Carrying out bankruptcy search required by the lender
- Carrying out the OS1 search in the name of the lender as required by them
- Checking the mortgage deed and other relevant documents for the lende
- Preparing the document requesting the mortgage funds for you to complete on the purchase
- Making an application to HMLR for registration of the mortgage on the property