Solicitor for purchase - best location

Bogof_Babe

We are viewing some flats tomorrow in the area we want to buy a holiday home. (Long story - elderly mother living in locality. Normally we would wait and see as regards the credit crunch situation [we are cash buyers], but in view of mum's age we really need to do it now). We plan on keeping it for several years, as it is a pleasant part of the country in its own right.

If we make an offer on one and it is accepted, I believe the immediate thing to do is instruct a solicitor to handle the purchase for us.

As we live 140 miles from the area in question, would it be better to use a solicitor local to us, or local to the property concerned? Or doesn't it make much difference?

Thanks for any guidance or comments.

loveabargin

If it was me I would opt for a solictor in the area your buying due to the fact that they know the area and can advise accordingly.

LillyJ

Our solicitor is 100 miles from where we live and where we are buying. We found them through a personal recommendation. (and they offer a discount for police officers). We haven't had any trouble so far (touch wood!)

Tozer

Doesn't matter at all these days as all Land Registry searches are done centrally. I would say though - don't go for one purely on price. If you have a recommendation, that is worth a great deal in my view.

I have always used the same conveyancer despite the fact that, for one purchase, she was actually 280 miles from the location. I trust her and like her style - very frank and sorts the issues from the non-issues.

Richard_Webster

There can be advantages in having someone local to the property - local knowledge can be useful sometimes - on the other hand it is more difficult to just pop in to collect things and drop them back...

Try contacting solicitors both local to you and to the location. Ask for detailed estimates, including making sure you are not going to be charge extra for all the usal scams, SDLT form, acting for lender, postages and telephones, professional indemnity premium, etc

If you speak on the 'phone to those local to the property you can ask if there are any particular issues that are important for the area/the particular property. They may know things like "The access is probably over common land and the rights are owned by Lord X who charges £YThousand or so for access...."

See what they say and then see what the solcitors local to you say about those issues. There may not be anything very important that makes it worth using a solicitor local to the property and if so you would be better using someone locla to you.

Bogof_Babe

Wow, thank you for all those really helpful and quick replies. It sounds like finding a solicitor is something we need to do even before we offer on a property then, if we are to avoid the potential overcharging minefields by doing it in a panic.

I'm not too clued up about the legal side of things, so would a solicitor's workload impact on the length of time the transaction takes to completion? Or might a very busy one simply refuse a request to act for us?

JimmyTheWig

When we were moving 60 miles we decided it would be better to have a solicitor in the area we were buying. So got some quotes. And got some quotes where we were at the time. It was much cheaper in the area that we were so went with that!
The whole process was a nightmare, but I think that was to do with vendors solicitor being a pain rather than our solicitor not being local to where we were buying.

AJ1982

Just completed on a purchase, living in South London, went for conveyancing via my bank, who put me in touch with some solicitors in North Lincs... no problems encountered at all...