Property Legal's Tips of the Trade

Ten Tips on a Residential Conveyancing - Sale Transaction

  1. Choose a recommended Estate Agent to sell your property. Please note that you will also need an Energy Performance Certificate (‘EPC’). For details of recommended estate agents and energy assessors in and around Knutsford, Timperley, Didsbury, Chorlton, Wythenshawe, Sale, Longsight, Wilmslow and Alderley Edge please Contact Us.
  2. Before accepting an offer to purchase your home we would advise you to ask your estate agent for details of how the proposed purchaser intends to fund the purchase of your property.
  3. When the sale is agreed by the seller, ensure that you provide the Estate Agent with the details of Property Legal and ask the estate agent to send out the sale memorandums to Property Legal’s residential conveyancing team as quickly as possible.
  4. Before sending out contracts for sale Property Legal’s residential conveyancing team will send out to you Transaction Forms. These are the law society’s approved conveyancing forms on a residential conveyance. We would advise you to complete these and return them to your residential conveyancer as soon as possible in order that the draft contracts and also supporting legal title can be sent to the buyers solicitor as soon as possible.
  5. Whilst nowadays 85% of the country is registered land and there are no real need for title deeds, if you do have the title deeds to your house it is a good idea to send them to your property lawyer just in case there is anything in those deeds which need to be disclosed.
  6. At exchange of contracts one of our property lawyers will send to you the contract for sale. It is important that before exchange you provide us with the specific date on which you wish to move to your new home as a specific completion date is needed to insert into the contract for sale.
  7. Once exchange of contract has been effected your designated property lawyer will contact you in order to obtain your exisiting mortgage account details so they can write to your mortgagee and obtain details of the amount required to redeem your residential mortgage.
  8. Between exchange and completion we strongly recommend that you arrange for removal vans 2 weeks before you move to your new home as demand for their services is high whereas supply can be quite low. For details of recommended removal companies in and around Knutsford, Timperley, Didsbury, Chorlton, Wythenshawe, Sale, Longsight, Wilmslow and Alderley Edge please Contact Us.
  9. A few days before completion, we will send to you the transfer for the property and a financial statement detailing the balance of the funds to be sent back to you on completion once the mortgage has been redeemed; the estate agents fees paid and property legal have discharge their invoice. We strongly recommend that you inform us before completion if you require the monies on the same day (i.e a CHAPS transfer for which there is a charge) or you are happy for the funds to come within 3 working days of completion (i.e. a BACS transfer).
  10. On completion your residential conveyancer will send you the balance of the funds due from the sale.
   

Ten Tips on a Residential Conveyacning - Purchase Transaction

  1. Make sure you seek the advice of a good finaincial adviser or mortgage broker to ensure that your mortgage to purchase the residential property is agreed in principle. For details of recommended finanancial advisers and mortgage brokers in and around Knutsford, Timperley, Didsbury, Chorlton, Wythenshawe, Sale, Longsight, Wilmslow and Alderley Edge please Contact Us.
  2. When the sale is agreed by the seller, ensure that you provide the Estate Agent our details and ask the estate agent to send out the sale memorandums to Property Legal’s residential conveyancing team as quickly as possible. For details of recommended estate agents in and around Knutsford, Timperley, Didsbury, Chorlton, Wythenshawe, Sale, Longsight, Wilmslow and Alderley Edge please Contact Us.
  3. If you have any specific concerns about the property please inform our property team who can advise you if there are any specific searches which can allay your fears. There are many bespoke searches which can be carried out such as a plan search which would reveal any planning applications within a certain distance from your residential home; a coal search which would reveal any mining activity and risk of subsidence; a BT search which would reveal any underground plant and equipement owned by BT under the Property. please Contact Us if you would like further details on bespoke searches which may be carried out.
  4. Immediately before exchange of contracts try to arrange with the Estate Agent a re-inspection of the residential property.
  5. Before exchange of contracts your designated property lawyer at Property Legal will send you a fixtures fittings and contents form detailing what the Seller is leaving in the residential property on completion. You should look through this list carefully and check that everything you anticipated being left in the house. If there are any discrepancies please inform your contact at Property Legal’s residential conveyancing department and the Estate Agent as soon as possible.
  6. At exchange of contracts one of our property lawyers will send to you a full report on title concerning the legal title to the house which you are purchasing together with the contract for sale. It is important that a few days before exchange that you provide us with the specific date on which you wish to move to your new home as a specific completion date is needed to insert into the contract for sale.
  7. We will need a full 10% deposit on exchange so you must ensure that you have liquid funds to transfer to us on the day of exchange. We strongly recommend that the funds are sent to us electronically by way of a CHAPS transfer. Your bank will make a charge for this service, however it is the safest way to ensure that we have received the cleared funds in time for exchange.
  8. Between exchange and completion we strongly recommend that you arrange for removal vans 2 weeks before you move to your new home as demand for their services is high whereas supply can be quite low. For details of recommended removal companies in and around Knutsford, Timperley, Didsbury, Chorlton, Wythenshawe, Sale, Longsight, Wilmslow and Alderley Edge please Contact Us.
  9. A few days before completion we will send to you the transfer for the property; the legal mortgage deed; a letter of advice concerning the mortgage and the completion statement. We strongly recommend that the funds are sent to us electronically by way of a CHAPS transfer. Your bank will make a charge for this service, however it is the safest way to ensure that we have received the cleared funds in time for exchange.
  10. On completion your residential conveyancer will send you the title information document, being the details of the registered title at the land registry. We would advise you to keep this safe along with any new build home warranties.
   

Ten Tips When Negotiating a Commercial Lease in Your Position As a Tenant

  1. Make sure that you have negotiated full heads of terms with the Landlord’s commercial agent. The reason for this is that it is frustrating as a Tenant if you instruct our commercial property lawyers to negotiate the lease on your behalf – only to find out that a major point such as a personal guarantee from company directors prevents the lease being signed. If this point is addressed directly at the heads of terms stage then hopefully this issue never arises. Our commercial property lawyers all have precedent heads of term on negotiating a new commercial lease and will be more than happy to send you a copy.
  2. If you are taking a lease in a company’s name the company has the benefit of limited liability. Please note that if the company suffered an insolvency event and went into administration or liquidation the Landlord will find it extremely difficult to claim arrears of rent and service charge. The Landlord will typically ask for a personal guarantee from the directors for the lease. You may choose not to do this as it will last for the duration of the term of the lease. Instead what can be offered is a six or three month rent deposit deed – whereby three or six months worth of rent is deposited with the Landlord in a separate designated interest bearing account which the Landlord can then access if the Tenant is in default of various terms in the lease.
  3. It is important to know the extent of the property you are taking a lease of. If you are only taking a lease of part of a building you will require the landlord to covenant to repair the other parts of the building. Typically the Landlord will seek to recover any costs in this with a service charge. If you are taking on a lease of the whole of the property it will generally be on an FRI lease basis and you will have responsibility to repair the whole building which will include the roof space.
  4. Landlords will often want a tenant to sign as long a lease as possible to increase the investment value of their building. Nevertheless in your position as a tenant you will want flexibility. Therefore we would strongly recommend that you seek to negotiate a “Break clause” which allows you to serve a notice on the landlord terminating your lease. Our commercial property lawyers will always recommend that this notice is unconditional, meaning the validity of the notice should not depend on the Tenant having paid its rent and having observed the other terms of the lease.
  5. The Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 part II provides tenants with statutory protection. This means that any tenant occupying business premises for longer than six months does not need to leave the property at the end of the contractual term of the lease but have the statutory right to remain in the premises and ask the court for a new lease. It is akin to the situation of a sitting tenant in a residential property. Therefore Landlords seek to have the act excluded by way of notices.
  6. Landlords will seek to insert a clause in the lease which allows them to increase the rent at certain specified periods throughout the term of the lease. This is called a rent review clause. Our commercial property lawyers will urge you not to agree to this if the lease is shorter than five years.
  7. When you are negotiating the terms of the lease with the landlord make sure that you make enquiries of the landlord to check that the property benefits from an authorised planning use for the purposes you intend to use the property. In any case our commercial property lawyers will raise Commercial Property Standard Enquiries (CPSE’s) which will illicit this information and also we will carry out a local search, which will reveal planning uses.
  8. It is strongly recommended that you agree with the landlord that your lease can be underlet and assigned. Most Landlords will not allow you to underlet or assign only part of a lease, however they will generally give you consent to assign or underlet your lease provided you seek their prior written consent.
  9. As a tenant you will be concerned that at the end of the term of the lease that potentially the Landlord will serve you with what is know as a dilapidations claim. In order to minimise the level of this claim at the end of the lease we would recommend that a schedule of condition (a list of photos showing the state of repair of the property at the time you take the lease on) is attached to the back of the lease and the obligation is to put the property back into the same state of repair as is evidenced by the annexed schedule.
  10. If you intend or need to fit out the property for your proposed tenancy then we would recommend that you have all your drawings together with the details of your fit out ready for the landlord to approve so at the start of the lease we can ask for what is known as a licence to fit out from the landlord.
   

Testimonials

Barbara Robinson

I instructed Property Legal to act on my behalf for the conveyancing for property purchase in Newquay in mid Sepemeber this year. I needed a quick turn around as the vendors were emigrating in November and accepted my low price on agreement that we would be completed quickly. I had never heard of Property Legal and was recommended to use them by the vendors' estate agent, so I took their advice and hoped for the best. I wasn't disappointed. Ca...

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