by Tony Lilleystone, Legal Manager
Get a quote for Conveyancing in Bradford
Bradford City Hall
If you are buying or selling a house in Bradford, instructing the right Bradford Conveyancing Solicitor to assist you can be a difficult task. The best advice is to look for a Solicitor who can combine substantial experience of property transactions in Bradford and expert local knowledge with first-class professional skills.
But what does that actually mean?
Well certainly there is no substitute for experience and just because your Solicitor is based in Bradford it doesn’t necessarily mean they are focussed on and have knowledge of the Bradford area.
Conducting the proper planning and local searches is key when acting for buyers, Solicitors will conduct local searches with the local authority. These searches cover a wide variety of matters which will be of importance to buyers, including planning consents and planning notices relating to the property, also any road or rail schemes which may be scheduled in the locality. Your Solicitor should be familiar with the matters which will be revealed in these searches.
The local authority for is Bradford Metropolitan District Council. The Council administers a wide area apart from Bradford itself, including places such as Bingley, Buttershaw, Shipley, Baildon, Keighley and Ilkley, and includes rural areas such as Ilkley Moor.
Following the abolition of the Home Information Pack scheme (HIPs) last year, it is up to the buyer’s Conveyancing Solicitor to carry out various property searches. These usually include a search and enquiries with the local authority, a drainage and water search, and an environmental search.
In Bradford, the local search is requested either direct from the Bradford Metropolitan District Council, Jacobs Well, Bradford BD1 5RW (Tel: 01274 432238) or through a search provider. Several companies carry out what are known as personal local searches, which means that they send someone to the council office to check the information in the council’s records and report. It is often quicker to get the result of personal searches, and the costs are comparable with those charged by councils, but some mortgage lenders will not accept them.
Drainage and water searches will usually be requested from the local drainage authority, which in Bradford is Yorkshire Water. This will confirm if a house is connected to mains water and drainage. The search result will also include various information about drainage and water mains in the area, and include property plans showing the position of pipes and sewers in the vicinity of the house.
All these searches can now be ordered online, and in many cases the responses are returned electronically, so delays are kept to a minimum. However it has to be said that some local authorities are not as quick as others in returning replies, and if a Conveyancing Solicitor is aware that a particular council will be slow it is likely that a personal search will be recommended.
Your Solicitor should know whether you will have to pay stamp duty on the purchase price. Stamp duty is a tax charged on the purchase, price of houses, but the government has declared some council wards in Bradford District as disadvantaged areas. Property buyers in these areas may not have to pay stamp duty, and your Bradford Solicitor can advise on this.
If you are buying one of the many flats and apartments in Bradford, you should make sure that their Solicitor is fully familiar with the transfer of such properties. Flats invariably have leasehold titles, and the buyers Solicitor will have to make many checks, especially where a property is in a large block. It would be easy to overlook something which could cause you problems after completion, so it makes sense to have a Solicitor who is fully conversant with this type of property.
It is particularly important for buyer’s Conveyancing Solicitors to check that proper management arrangements are in place when flats are in larger blocks. Provision should have been made for the maintenance and repair of the structure of the building, and it is essential that the whole building is insured under a single policy. Often such building management will be carried out by agents appointed by the freeholder, but sometimes this will be done by a company in which the individual flat-owners will each have shares. In that case it will be necessary for the share to be transferred to a buyer when the sale is completed.
In 2010 Conveyancing Solicitor Catherine Williams was acting for the buyers of a leasehold flat on Skipton Road, Ilkley, Bradford LS29. The sellers Solicitors were Savage Crangle, of 15 High Street, Skipton, BD23 1AD. When they sent Catherine the contract and official copy of the land registry title and lease, they also sent replies to a standard questionnaire completed by the sellers. In this the sellers stated that they were part-owners of the management company which owned the freehold of the block, and did not pay any ground rent.
From inspection of the lease it appeared that the flat was one of three in an older house which had been converted into flats around 1995. At that time a company had been set up, which granted the original leases. The lease of each flat was for a term of 999 years. Under the provisions of the lease the company was responsible for maintaining and repairing the main fabric of the house, including the roof and foundations, and for insuring the building. The sellers stated that they paid a yearly sum of £650 to the company to cover their contribution to the insurance premium and ongoing repair and maintenance fees. This included the cost of electricity for the lighting of the shared hallway and stairs.
The sellers indicated that they had a share in the company, so Catherine asked the sellers’ Conveyancing Solicitors to provide a copy, and confirm that the original would be handed over on completion together with a signed share transfer from. Catherine also requested the name and address of the company secretary so that the share transfer could be registered.
Although the arrangement whereby the freehold is owned by a company is more convenient when it comes to selling a property, as it is only necessary to transfer of the share in the freehold company, rather than having to transfer the freehold registered title, it is essential that the company is properly administered and that any annual returns or other forms are filed with companies house. Unfortunately these administrative requirements are often overlooked, with the result that the company is stuck off the register of companies.
In Catherine’s case, there was no problem in this respect. Catherine carried out a check with the companies registry, which confirmed that the company was still registered and that regular returns had been filed. Therefore on completion she was able to send the share transfer and certificate to the company secretary so that a new share certificate could be issued in the names of the buyers.
Planning permission is always required to build new houses, and a copy of the relevant permission will be supplied by developer’s lawyers. However permission may also be required for extensions or other alterations to a house. Conveyancing Solicitors acting for buyers will therefore want to know if any works have been carried out which might have required consent.
Alterations to a building may have to comply with relevant building regulations, and the seller will need to provide a completion certificate from the council as evidence that the work has been inspected and approved.
This is a complicated area of law, and solicitors acting for homebuyers usually err on the side of caution. If there is any doubt as to whether planning consent should have been obtained or whether building works comply with regulations, the seller may either be asked to obtain retrospective consent, (usually a time-consuming process) or pay the premium for an insurance policy to be obtained, which would indemnify the buyer should the council take action.
Many people will query why solicitors get so concerned about these issues, as councils very rarely take enforcement action. However cases regularly arise where this does happen and the financial consequences can be considerable. Since aggrieved clients will probably take action against solicitors for professional negligence, solicitors who fail to carry out proper checks will find themselves in trouble with their insurers.
If the answer is ‘yes’ then you might have a problem. As a major centre of the woollen industry for many years, Bradford was a major industrial centre, so there will always be concerns about potential land contamination caused by previous industrial use. Much of this industry has now disappeared, and there may be little evidence to show that it once existed. However land contamination is an important issue for buyers in such areas, and buyers’ Conveyancing Solicitors will carry out environmental searches.
When new homes have been built on former industrial sites, remedial works should have been carried out to remove any potential contamination. Conveyancing Solicitors acting for buyers will check that this has been done.
However older homes might be next to former factory sites where land contamination may exist. Your Solicitor will check this for you, and obtain a search which will show any previous sources of potential contamination, as well as any current industrial use in the area.
There are 57 conservation areas spread throughout the area of Bradford Metropolitan District, and many of the outlying towns and villages are covered. Many such areas include residential property, and your Conveyancing Solicitor should know if the home you are buying is in one of these areas.
Enhanced planning regulations apply to buildings in conservation areas, so if alterations or other works have been carried out by the seller, your Solicitor will need to check that proper planning consent has been obtained for them. If unauthorised works have been carried out then that will present a problem and the seller will have to try and obtain retrospective consent.
Buyers must also be advised that any alterations and works which they intend to carry out to houses in such areas will probably need planning consent; for instance consent would be required for replacement windows and doors as well as the erection of satellite dishes. The penalties for failing to get necessary consent can be substantial, and the Council has the power to require unauthorised works to be removed.
Although mostly urban in character, a considerable part of the district covered by Bradford Metropolitan District is quite rural. Anyone buying a house in such areas may find they are faced with different legal problems, and will need a Conveyancing Solicitor who is familiar with this type of property. Access might be over a private road running over someone else’s land, while houses in the countryside may not be connected to mains drainage. For these reasons the buyers of such houses should make sure that their Conveyancing Solicitor has wide experience of this type of property, and the problems that can arise.
For a quicker move on a Bradford property it will pay you to instruct a Conveyancing Solicitor who knows all about Conveyancing in the Bradford area. One of Fridaysmove recommended Conveyancing Solicitors has all the necessary experience and local knowledge of the Bradford area to ensure that you receive the best possible legal service for the lowest price.
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