Solicitor home town or destination

bullinn1

Not sure how this works, should I employ a solicitor in the area I'm selling my property (to handle the sale) ... do they then look after the purchase in the destination town ?

Grenage

They can indeed; I'd use a local conveyancer, because it's easier when giving them papers - or you want to speak to them in person.

moneyistooshorttomention

Pros and cons to this.

I used a local solicitor when selling my last house (in the West Country) and purchasing one here (in West Wales).

The main consideration to me was that I wanted to be able to visit the solicitor involved - which meant they had to be local to me.

Plus side was I'm from an area with a rather higher expectation of efficiency/promptness/objectivity (it's a city) and it was best for the firm I used to match my own personal expectations.

Down side was that the firm I used seemed to be as oblivious as I was to the fact that things can sometimes work out rather differently over here and were pretty much as unaware about particular things to look out for that are common in this area and distinctly infrequent in my own area. For instance - there seems to be a lot more boundary problems here, there is definitely a lot more unadopted roads here, and an element of "small town mentality" (which I gather often applies to small towns anywhere in Britain) which leads to favouring locals sometimes.

davidmcn

As money says, a solicitor local to your purchase may be helpful as they'll be familiar with the local market, regional quirks in the title deeds etc. Not sure being able to visit the office is all that much of an advantage as generally even nearby clients will do the whole thing by phone/email/post, nobody really wants to take time off work just to drink their solicitor's terrible coffee.

But overall I don't think it matters too much.

agrinnall

I used a solicitor local to my purchase, and it worked fine, I had to post papers to them a few times but I never needed to see them in person. However, in my case it was a necessity anyway as I was living in Scotland and buying in England so had to find a solicitor based in England.

eddddy

I tend to use solicitors in lower cost areas - not necessarily close to where I live or where the property is. (The differences in the legal fees can be huge.)

Obviously, that makes it harder to get personal recommendations, but I would choose property specialists, research them on the web, and exchange an email/phone call or two with them to judge what they are like.

But as Money says, some areas do have unusual idiosyncrasies which might confuse a remote solicitor. But I've never hit those kinds of problems.

Bonfire_Bride

Home town - you are more likely to need to visit this office prior to exchange/completion.

moneyistooshorttomention

Thinking further (and now aware of the problems I've had here) and, in hindsight what I would have done (had I been aware that some things would be different in a small town to a city) I would have:

- probably chosen a solicitor firm in my city still (convenience/my way of thinking) BUT chosen a smaller firm. By the time I came to use this particular firm (2nd time around - as I'd used them for starter house) they were MASSIVE. They had specialist departments. Unbeknown to me the person they put me with this time was a legal executive (instead of the solicitor I'd had first time).

So - I would have chosen a smaller firm in my city - without specialist departments and where I would get the solicitor I thought I had and, hopefully, one familiar with the type of quirks that might appear in this area.

2. Most of all - I would know what sort of questions to ask (none of which were asked by the legal executive I had!!!!). I would given her a list of those specific questions and insisted on a reply to them from vendor. As it is - I moved in, then realised exactly what I hadn't known and just had to work out how things "should be" and then act in accordance with that.

Perhaps you can post what particular issues you are wondering about and we might be able to be more helpful - if only to tell you what specific questions you might like to ask.

casper_g

We used a solicitor in the town we were moving from, and this worked well for two reasons.

First, because we had used them on our previous purchase three years previously, and got good service from them - and the new transaction was handled by the same person who'd given good service previously.

Secondly, it was useful to be able to call into the office. We did this for verification of identity documents, which could have been done by post but would have been less convenient and more risk of things going astray. The main benefit though was that our mortgage deed for First Direct had to be witnessed by the solicitor. If this had been a six hour round trip away things would have been delayed by at least a week and we wouldn't have moved before Christmas. This would have led to the real risk of the chain collapsing higher up.

nubbins

Yes they can handle the purchase and sale. Most of my purchases are done using a solicitor up to 300 miles away In this day and age there is no need to use someone local, there are a few things that you need to post but the majority of stuff can be scanned and emailed.
Having said that if a local versus far away came in at the same price I may opt for local but unfortunately being in the SE the local conveyancers are usually double.
Get a few quotes from sites like reallymoving.com and compare and watch out for hidden charges.

moneyistooshorttomention

This thread has had me thinking through quirks of an area that are possible this morning.

Having been reading MSE for a while now and I've seen various ones come up that I'd never heard of in my city.

1. Rights of Way - across other peoples back yards to terrace houses or across peoples gardens. I hadnt the faintest idea this happened until various posters from different parts of the country have come on describing it as common (ie it obviously is in their area). I don't think this area has these ROW across terrace house back yards - but it certainly has ROWs across peoples private gardens sometimes and it feels really odd to me to find part of a footpath goes across a strangers private garden.

2. Ill-defined boundaries/unclear demarcation - never heard of until I moved here. I'm used to walls and fences clearly there surrounding "own territory" (apart from the odd fairly modern era housing with open-plan front gardens - but one can figure out easily where the "invisible wall/fence" lies).

3. Newly-built houses sometimes having to make regular payments to a management company for maintenance of roads/green areas. I've always been used to everything that should be Council's responsibility to maintain is Council's responsibility to maintain (and that applies to newly-built houses too afaik).

4. The concept of houses being leasehold. Again - I'd never heard of it, but have seen the odd house featured for sale in some other parts of the country that is.

Hence, if one comes from an area where everything is absolutely standard/fixed/normal - "mine is mine and other peoples is other peoples and the Council's is the Council's" and everyone knows exactly where they stand and it's all obvious and then move to elsewhere in the country it can be a shock to discover just how many ways things can be non-standard/different to what you're used to.

....and that's where you need to get an idea of what might be different in new area in advance and then make sure appropriate questions are asked.