Mortgage Valuation then and now! SHORTFALL

kingstreet

This boils down to a simple question.

Did you have a solicitor study the legal pack at the auctioneer's office prior to purchasing the land in question?

Doing this allows the conveyancer acting for you to establish the title to the property and details of any easements, restrictive covenants and in this case, the right of access to the site.

If this wasn't done, there was no other opportunity for this to be established before the commitment to purchase was made.

opinions4u

kingstreet wrote: »

This boils down to a simple question.

Did you have a solicitor study the legal pack at the auctioneer's office prior to purchasing the land in question?

When I asked "Did you cut any corners?" I think this more eloquently explains what I was trying to establish.

kingstreet

It seems the money raised to purchase this plot was done outwith any lender involvement in the purchase itself. If the OP had borrowed on the plot, he would have been forced to follow the lender's policy and the solicitor would have been acting for both parties, the purchaser and the lender.

It's possible, although without the OP's admission we'll never know, that there was no real investigation of the "provenance" of the plot before it was purchased.

Dave_Ham

Totally agree with above posts - spot on people.

However, in addition as I read this the TMB then secured their charge on this property (happy to be corrected) so therefore another solicitor and bank involved??

kingstreet

Absolutely.

One would have expected that somewhere between the lender, surveyor and solicitor, the question of right of access would have been raised during the remortgage process.

If it was raised and not answered, or not raised, it would leave the lender's security in question.

The pertinent question is whether the solicitor acting in a remortgage is required to carry out the same level of study of the title to the property as he/she would in a purchase transaction. We know indemnity insurance is used in preference to obtaining a new local search, so it may be possible the borrower indemnifies the lender against such a defect becoming known after the event, on the basis he already owned the property.

If the borrower hasn't indemnified the lender, then the solicitor would be responsible for raising the issue of the lack of right of access with the lender, and the lender would then ask the surveyor to take this into account when valuing the property.

Presumably, the solicitor used in the remortgage was acting for both lender and purchaser and the question of the (lack of) right of access should be put to them for an explanation?