Conveyancing Enquiries - Potential Risks for Conveyancers

Introduction

There are currently many more burdens of investigation, not just for your client but also their lender, which at one time simply referred to approving a good and marketable title but which now relates to far wider subjects such as the condition of the property and even identity. If you do not raise the right questions, interpret the answers and advise your client accordingly the risks are immense - going to the heart of the contract, issues of fraud, and in the end your professional obligations.

Raising relevant preliminary enquiries is a vital part of the conveyancing process - your buyer client is not yet committed to buy and what you find out may be crucial to their decision to proceed. Your seller client needs to know the importance of providing meaningful and not misleading answers. Asking the right questions is one thing - what to do with the replies is another.

What You Will Learn

This webinar will cover the following:

• Misrepresentation and the importance of sellers answering preliminary enquiries fully/developer disputes
• Not only ‘Buyer Beware’ but also ‘Seller Beware’ - the risk of fraudulent misrepresentation, The Misrepresentation Act 1967, remedies, rescission and damages
• Law Society Management Enquiry Form FME 1
• Questions to ask the lender - redemption problems
• Cladding and questions to ask following Grenfell
• Specific questions from solar panels to septic tanks, Japanese knotweed to double glazing, and a look at forms of enquiries
• TA 13 - Law Society Code for completion by post and additional questions to be raised
• New build - off plan purchases, NHBC questions
• Indemnity policies - take it or leave it or more questions?
• Non-reliance clauses, attempts at exclusion, standard conditions of sale 5th edition, the protocol and the danger of ‘not so far as the seller is aware’
• Questions of insolvency, indemnity insurance, identity and fraud - the appeal decision in Dreamvar v Mishcon de Reya
• Enquiries to raise with your own client - do they own another dwelling, are they really first time buyers, a dispute or a complaint
• Questions of survey or additional reports
• Your obligation to warn your client as to the effectiveness of your advice and the scope of your retainer

This pre-recorded webinar will be available to view from Thursday 13th March 2025

Alternatively, you can gain access to this webinar and 1,700+ others via the MBL Webinar Subscription. Please email webinarsubscription@mblseminars.com for more details.