How to choose the right solicitor for you and your transaction – When selling or purchasing a property.

Summary:

As we all know buying and selling a property is one of the biggest things you will do and we understand that this comes with worry and also stress. When choosing your desired solicitor, finding the right point of contact is extremely important. Your desired choice can impact the outcome of your sale or purchase whether it’s leasehold, freehold or commercial or due to legal reasons.

Choosing a solicitor for your needs from the start:

One of the main things is making sure your solicitor is made aware and understands your specific legal needs, so identifying your requirements from the start is crucial to avoid any bumps in the road. This can be anything from just a normal selling and buying transaction, to a transaction where there are more complex needs being a separation / divorce, a complex lease transaction or a probate transaction. Knowing your legal needs will help you narrow down the field of potential solicitors with the experience that will be required for your transaction.

Recommendation for potential solicitors:

If you are new to the selling and buying process, or have sold and brought a property before but was not satisfied with your chosen solicitor at the time, one of the most reliable ways to find a proactive solicitor is through recommendations. This could be from friends, family members and also the estate agent who is dealing with your property.

We understand that some clients believe estate agents only recommend solicitors to “gain commission” however this is not the case. As we deal with solicitors daily, it comes to light which solicitors have a reputable background and we also come across ones that unfortunately don’t. It is our duty of care to act in the best interest of our clients, as we of course want to recommend solicitors in which we have experienced transactions with and have also received great feedback.

It’s a common frustration that online solicitors don’t respond to you, and this tends to be the case. Emails will get lost and calls get missed with no returned contact so it’s reassuring when you have a local solicitor acting for you, knowing you can arrange an appointment to meet with your solicitor to raise or go through any concerns in person.

The end result for all parties involved is that we all look for a smooth, and steady process. However, where obstacles do come up, you as the client want to have the confidence your acting solicitor can deal with the issues promptly and also go “The Extra Mile” where required.

My advice would be choosing a local solicitor.

Fees and Comparing:

We also recommend you obtain 2-3 solicitors’ quotes from recommendations. This way, before making a decision you can compare the initial quotes and decide by liaising with the solicitors, which one you feel you have the most confidence in and whether they are the right solicitor for your transaction. Solicitor quotes can vary depending on the solicitor’s expertise and the complexity of your transaction i.e., if it’s a Leasehold? Is it a listed building? are there any restrictions or covenants on the property?

All these factors take a big part in the initial quotation. Don’t forget to discuss the breakdown of fees and the payment structure during your first interaction with the solicitor. This will help you avoid any financial surprises down the road. Remember, the cheapest option is not always the best option.

The importance of Communication from your appointed Solicitor:

Good communication skills are one of the most essential things to look out for, especially in what could be a stressful and tough time. Effective communication can give you the confidence to trust and also build a rapport with your solicitor, along with managing all parties’ expectations by making sure you are both on the same page, at the same time.

Lastly, choosing the right solicitor is a decision that should not be rushed. Take the time to research by looking into reviews for the individual and the company, liaise with multiple solicitors (2-3), and consider all aspects including their fees, the communication received to date and most importantly, do you feel confident and could you trust your appointed solicitor?

Hopefully by following these steps, you can ensure that you are well-represented from the start with a pro-active solicitor, with confidence that you will reach a point of exchange of contracts with completion following.

Hi Folks, here we are, another month and another blog and this time, on a different topic completely, the law!

Buying and selling a property can be confusing to say the least and that is before you even get to the conveyancing part.

On 21 December 2017 the Government announced plans to tackle the growing problem of newly built houses sold as leasehold rather than freehold, and to limit ground rents on new lease agreements. Leasehold reform was included in the Law Commission’s Programme of Law Reform with the aim of finding ways to make buying a freehold or extending a lease “easier, faster, fairer and cheaper.”

In The Queen’s Speech 2022 “The Government will be taking forward a comprehensive programme of reform to improve fairness and transparency in the leasehold market. The Law Commission’s work on leasehold reform is now complete and will become law from 31^st May 2022.

There are around 4.6 million leasehold homes in England, according to estimates from the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG). Long leaseholders buy the right to live in their homes for the term of the lease. Around 68% of these are flats, while 32% are houses. Most flats in the private sector are leasehold (an estimated 93% of owner-occupied flats and 73% of private-rented flats). Leasehold houses are uncommon across England, at around 8% of the stock. There’s evidence indicating that developers had started to sell new-build houses on long lease agreements as this can represent a lucrative future income stream.

Leaseholders report a range of problems, including: high service charges and a lack of transparency over what they are being charged for; freeholders who block attempts by leaseholders to exercise the Right to Manage; excessive administration charges and charges for applications to extend lease agreements or enfranchise; and a lack of knowledge over their rights and obligations.

From the end of May, estate agents and other property businesses must include length of lease, amount of service charge and ground rent and whether the property is in a shared ownership scheme when marketing properties. This information is absolutely essential to buyers finding out from the start whether a property is worth pursuing or not (e.g., is the lease so short they won’t be able to get a mortgage).

What does this information include? Perhaps most significant is that details of tenure of the property (how you own a property) must be disclosed, this includes the following categories:

1. leasehold
2. freehold
3. commonhold

Currently most reputable estate agents and property professionals are in the midst of obtaining the relevant information required to comply with this new legislation, however it is not an easy task as some of the property owners are not even aware of what their exact lease terms mean to them. There are some developments in our area that are indeed freehold but also have a leasehold element, including the cost of maintaining communal outdoor areas or the cost of electric and maintenance of gates in gated communities etc: –

The story here at Cross Keys Estates is no different. We are speaking to vendors and their solicitors to obtain this newly legally required information. The best way is to get a physical copy of the lease, that way we can quote the lease details directly. If a copy of the lease is not immediately available, then maybe either talk to the solicitor that is either doing or committed to doing the conveyancing on the property. Unfortunately, we cannot just take the vendors word for this information anymore as it forms an integral part of the Government’s reform for the housing market.

If you would like a personal chat with me to see if now is the right time for you to sell or rent out your property, please feel free to either give me a call on 01752 500099 or 01752 500018 or pop in to our Stoke office where I or one of my experienced property consultants will be only too happy to see if we can help.

You get what you pay for

For those of you who are new to the house buying game, as the title says, choosing a solicitor to do your legal work can be very challenging to say the least. There are two types of people that can do the legal work for you, the first is a “licensed conveyancer” and the second is a “solicitor”. Both of these groups will do the same job but a firm of solicitors will usually have a dedicated conveyancing department to deal with selling, buying property, lease extensions, probate and remortgage and equity transfers. Some buyers and sellers look online to compare the prices for these services and although this does seem logical to ensure that you get a good price for this service, as an estate agent of 20 years I can tell you that this is probably the worst thing possible for you to do. If you cannot go in to see the person dealing with this, do not use them. During any property transaction there will be a lot of issues that get raised and have to be answered before contracts can be exchanged, usually this entails lots of running around trying to get the relevant information back to your chosen conveyancer. It is always much easier if you can get a face to face meeting and thus ensure that the right questions and answers are being given.

As an estate agent selling hundreds of properties in Plymouth and the surrounding areas, we often have buyers and sellers telling us that they are going to use an online company to fulfil the legal obligation. My first response to this is often to check out the online reviews for these companies, sometimes we already have had experience in dealing them so we are often able to offer a firsthand account of how good or not their services are. The main issue for these big call centre based conveyancing firms is that all the legal groundwork is carried out by paralegals or administrative assistants (not the qualified person that you think), all this paperwork is then put into a file for a solicitor or conveyancer to sign off. Usually in these firms there are several different teams in several different locations and sometimes they don’t always coordinate very well leading to lengthy delays in the purchase or sale process and this in turn can lead to huge amounts of frustration to both sides of the transaction.

In Plymouth and many other cities around the country, there are lots of different covenants on properties. These can vary from things such as “You cannot have chickens at this property”, “You cannot run a business from this property”, “You cannot alter the front fascia of this building” or one of the most common ones being ”You cannot split this property into multiple dwellings”. Plymouth has all of these covenants and many more besides. A lot of them are no longer enforceable but a surprising amount of them are enforceable and this often catches buyers out as it can change their decision as to complete the purchase or to pull out altogether. You can get around some of these covenants by having an indemnity policy to protect you from them being enforced but again using an online firm that does not know the area, or the idiosyncrasies that we have, often leads to poor advice being given and usually a sale will fall through as a result.

There is an old saying “You get what you pay for” this is certainly true when it comes to conveyancing in England. Just because they may be cheap, doesn’t mean that you will be happy. At Cross Keys Estates, we regularly offer our clients several quotes from local solicitor firms so that they can compare local prices, that added to the fact that we have sat in the middle of thousands of property sales, means that we can help you make the right choice for you to ensure that you have a smooth house buying/selling process.