Breaking Property News – 20/07/2023
Daily bite-sized proptech and property news in partnership with Proptech-X.
4Corners says you need to buy your next home today to get moved in by Christmas
Phil Priest, Director of 4Corners has today said ‘Anyone looking to move into their next home by the 25th of December, will need to have agreed a sale, as on average it takes 23-weeks to move.’
And he points to a number of reasons why that is, including Local authority searches taking a staggering 21 weeks to be turned around in Bolton, and other areas where searches take months rather than weeks to be in the hands of conveyancers who transfer the title of properties.
Local authority searches
Phil Priest goes on to say, ‘What most people moving do not understand, and why would they, is that until the local authority searches are back with a buyer’s solicitor or conveyancer usually the starting gun for doing any work has not been fired’.
Phil goes on to explain that really when a property is bought subject to contract, the buyers solicitor is blind and needs documentation to guide them about the property, and the local authority search is a key place to stumble upon key issues that need to be flagged and resolved. So that if there is a mortgage the lender is happy, and of course the client the buyer is safeguarded on the purchase.
Phil Priest explains this more fully, ‘A local authority search, also known as a local search or council search, is a key component of the conveyancing process when buying or selling a property. It is a search conducted by the buyer’s solicitor or conveyancer with the relevant local authority to obtain information about the property and its surrounding area.
The local authority search provides important information that may affect the property or its value, such as planning permissions, building regulations, conservation areas, environmental concerns, road schemes, and any other relevant factors specific to the property’s location. The search aims to uncover any potential issues or restrictions that the buyer should be aware of before proceeding with the purchase.
Typically, the local authority search is divided into two parts: the LLC1 and CON29 forms. The LLC1 form focuses on the property itself, revealing details about planning permissions, tree preservation orders, and other similar matters. The CON29 form covers wider issues such as road adoption, planning proposals in the area, building regulations, and various other local authority-related inquiries.
The results of the local authority search are provided in a formal report that helps the buyer make an informed decision about the property purchase. It is an essential step in the conveyancing process and is often required by mortgage lenders as part of their due diligence before approving a loan.’
Phil goes on to explain that in many cases after a sold board is put up, the vendor feels that his buyer is moving forward, and they may well be arranging the mortgage having a survey and getting a mortgage offer, but if the buyer’s solicitor has not got the search back, they will be doing nothing. This is where the pressure in a chain sale comes from.
Phil Priest further comments, ‘In some sale a first time buyer buys a home, that vendor buys on, and then that buyer buys on, by the time the last sale is agreed the bottom of the chain may be two months into their conveyancing waiting for the top oof the chain to play catch up. If that property is in Bolton, then no conveyancing for 21 weeks, the sale is likely to fail.
Ways around this are to pay extra and have a hand search, if the lender is happy with this, unlike a standard local authority search, which is typically conducted online or through electronic means, a hand search involves physically visiting the local authority’s office and examining the records and documents related to the property.
During a hand search, the solicitor or conveyancer reviews various records and documents, such as planning applications, building regulations, environmental reports, highway information, and any other relevant paperwork held by the local authority. This allows them to gather detailed and up-to-date information about the property and its surroundings’.
Phil also said that given one in three sales fall through, with a loss of over 215M in fees, not to mention the stress and upset caused, hopefully with increased technology, at a press of a button in not too a distant future the Bolton’s of the country will be a thing of the past.
Phil Priest ended by saying that he and Paresh Palmer his co-founder set up 4Corners specifically to speed the plough of all stakeholders, agents, solicitors and brokers, helping to convert their sales pipelines faster by giving guidance on operations and providing a simpler route to getting people moved, his company tagline being, ‘Progressing Property Transactions Through Technology.’
Full disclosure – Phil is a personal friend and also a client of mine via Proptech-PR ‘A consultancy for Proptech Founders’ – but that in no way diminishes his brilliance and the tech they are utilising to help everyone getting moved – to contact Phil just click on this link.
tlyfe the renters App is becoming tenants best friend
It has just been announced that the amount of fresh homes to rent from private landlords is at an all time low, and that is why tlyfe the tenants best friend is, according to Openbrix who power tlyfe, now coming into its own.
CEO Adam Pigott comments, ‘We have been happily surprised in the uptake of the tlyfe App, at a time when tenants are literally one of 20 looking to secure a new place to live, users are getting an advantage by showing that they are a Grade A candidate to be living in a Landlords property.’
Adam goes on to say that the whole thinking behind tylfe has in a way been decades in the coming and is rooted with his own previous experience as a topflight agent in the lettings sector. He feels that his DNA, knowing the needs of both the tenant and the Landlord.
‘Look it is quite simple, Landlords just want a quality tenant, so does a letting agent, or if there is no agent then the Landlord themselves want to be sure who they are dealing with. tlyfe is like a guarantee for all of the stakeholders, it transparently shows the history of a person looking to live perhaps for years in a property owned by someone else.’
‘It helps the tenant as the Apps pre-qualification tool makes them ‘rent ready’ and it Keeps an ongoing digital record of all their rental payments and, provided they pay on time, helps them to build their credit score. On top of this tenants can get deposit protection. The App allows them to download their protection certificate and manage the return of their deposit at the end of the tenancy, with the Government backed Tenancy Deposit Scheme. Saving time and getting that cash back into their account quickly.’
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