Completing house sale from overseas

lamanga

Hi, we have had an offer on our uk house and need to instruct a conveyancer quickly to get things moving. The agent has recommended two local solicitors, both of which charge a referral fee for the agent which we are reluctant to pay. As we are the other side of the world I dont see the need for a local solicitor (to the house) as its not as if we can pop in to see them and drop stuff off.

Having read many posts on here the majority would recommend a local conveyancer but would this be necessary being so far away, I cant see any benefit only for local knowledge.

We will need a proxy to sign for us though, does anyone have any ideas of costs to set a proxy up and with whom?

Thanks in advance :kisses3:

PaulLuke

Given the distance involved you're probably right about the recomendation to use a local conveyancer not being that important.

I'd also agree about the referral fee issue - my suspicion would be that the referral fee will just end up being added onto the solicitor's charges.

And to make you smile I recall a certain firm trying to persuade my conveyancer (who I had already instructed and used previously) to pay them a referral fee!!

Anyway I'd ask friends/family for recommendations for a good conveyancer and then contact them to ask for a quote and explanation of the process, along with discussing any issues/complications that they anticipate due to your being overseas.

hamster2013

I have completed 2 purchases from abroad
both times, the solicitor was in a different town altogether (around 150miles away) from the property - it didnt really matter.

the first time i flew in once and used that trip to go to solicitors to sign everything in person

the second time, I did not even do that - all was done via email, phone and post.... it was the same solicitors i used for the first time - not sure if it mattered though.

chappers

Even if using a local solicitor they wouldn't normally come to the property anyway, so why bother.

seven-day-weekend

We sold a property in England - start to finish- while we were living in Spain - everything done by phone, post and e-mail. We used a local solicitor (to the English property), but only because we had always used him, I can't see as it would have made any difference.

We also completed the sale on our Spanish property whilst we were in the UK, (although preliminary work was done in Spain) - we appointed our solicitor as POA to sign on our behalf, although either or both of us could have flown over to sign ourselves if we'd wanted to.

gld73

I was living abroad when I sold my house in England about 5 years ago - I used a conveyancing solicitor who did all her work by post or email (no need to be local), and I gave my sister power of attorney while I was living abroad so that she could sign on my behalf. All went amazingly smoothly!

lamanga

How easy is it to set up power of attorney and what sort of costs are involved?
Would it be possible to do everything without poa i.e. electronically.
Been a long time since we bought/sold a house so a bit out of touch.

Thanks for your replies guys.

seven-day-weekend

We did not use a POA when we sold our UK property from Spain. The solicitor sent all the documents that we had to sign through the post. We signed, had them witnessed and sent them back.

tim123456789

lamanga wrote: »

Hi, we have had an offer on our uk house and need to instruct a conveyancer quickly to get things moving. The agent has recommended two local solicitors, both of which charge a referral fee for the agent which we are reluctant to pay.

The referral fee isn't paid by you

It comes out of the Solicitors standard quote for the work and you won't get a (significantly) lower quote by going direct.

But if the absolute fee is high then walk.

tim

lamanga

tim123456789 wrote: »

The referral fee isn't paid by you

It comes out of the Solicitors standard quote for the work and you won't get a (significantly) lower quote by going direct.

But if the absolute fee is high then walk.

tim

We have had a few more quotes and all about the same so yes it does look like Solicitors fund the referral. So if the local solicitor has no charge for abortive sales and can do the conveyancing by email and post, if need be, I think we will get them to do the conveyancing.
The solicitor we hope to use actually done the conveyancing 20 years ago when we bought the house but apparently do not keep records that far back. My thinking is, we need to find the paperwork for an extension and roof dormer added before we purchased so should know where the planning permission is.