My partner and I are planning to acquire a home in Richmond Upon Thames and are in fact using a Richmond Upon Thames conveyancing firm. Within the last couple of days our solicitor has sent a preliminary report and documents to look through with the expectation that exchange is imminent. Bank of Ireland have this evening contacted us to inform me that there is now an issue as our Richmond Upon Thames lawyer is not on their conveyancing panel. What do we do from here?

Where you are buying a property needing a mortgage it is conventional for the purchasers' lawyers to also represent the mortgage company. In order to act for a bank or building society a law firm has to be on that lender's conveyancing panel. An application has to be made by the law firm to the lender to become a member of the lender's panel and there are increasingly strict criteria which the firm has to satisfy and indeed some lenders now require their panel members to be part of the Law Society’s Conveyancing Accreditation Scheme. Your solicitor should contact your lender and see if they can apply for membership of their conveyancing panel, but if that is not viable they will instruct their own solicitors to act. You are not legally obliged to appoint a law firm on the bank's conveyancing panel as you are at liberty to use your preferred Richmond Upon Thames lawyers, in which case it will likely add costs, and it may delay matters as you have another set of people involved.

Do commercial conveyancing searches disclose impending roadworks that may affect a commercial property in Richmond Upon Thames?

Many commercial conveyancing solicitors in Richmond Upon Thames will perform a SiteSolutions Highways report as it dramatically cuts the time that conveyancers invest in investigating accurate data on highways that impact buildings and development assets in Richmond Upon Thames. The search result sets out definitive data on the adoption status of roads, footpaths and verges, as well as the implication of traffic schemes and the rights of way surrounding a commercial development sites in Richmond Upon Thames.

For every commercial conveyancing transaction in Richmond Upon Thames it is critical to investigate the adoption status of roads surrounding a site. Failure to identify developments where adoption procedures have not been addressed adequately may cause delays to Richmond Upon Thames commercial conveyancing deals as well as pose a risk to future plans for the site. These searches are not carried out for residential conveyancing in Richmond Upon Thames.

I used Wolstenholmes a few years past for my conveyancing in Richmond Upon Thames. I now require my papers but cannot find the solicitor. What do I do?

Do call the Solicitors Regulatory Authority (SRA) to assist in tracing your conveyancing files. They can be contacted on please contact on 0870 606 2555. Alternatively, you should use their online form to make an enquiry. You will need to provide the SRA with as much information as possible to assist their search, including the name and address in Richmond Upon Thames of the conveyancing firm of solicitors you previously hired, the name of conveyancing solicitor with whom you had dealings, and the date on which you last had dealings with the firm.

I've recently found out that there is a flying freehold element on a house I have offered on two weeks back in what should have been a quick, no chain conveyancing. Richmond Upon Thames is where the house is located. Can you shed any light on this issue?

Flying freeholds in Richmond Upon Thames are not the norm but are more likely to exist in relation to terraced houses. Even where you use a solicitor outside Richmond Upon Thames you would need to get your solicitor to go through the deeds thoroughly. Your bank may require your conveyancing solicitor to take out an indemnity policy. Some of the more diligent conveyancing solicitors in Richmond Upon Thames may decide that this is not enough and that the deeds be re-written to give you the most up to date legal protection. If so, the next door neighbour also had to sign up to the revised deeds.It is possible that your lender will not accept the situation so the sooner you find out the better. You should also check with your insurance broker as to whether they will insure a flying freehold property.

We have been informed by numerous friends to expect 6-8 weeks for Richmond Upon Thames conveyancing to complete.This was four weeks ago. The property information was only received to my conveyancing practitioner a couple of days ago so now does it countdown?

You should be pragmatic concerning timescales. Property transactions in Richmond Upon Thames usually takes about two months. This time period is not due to property lawyer being slow and willfully delay matters. The amount of money involved in purchasing any property is so high, the purchaser's property lawyer needing to carry out a whole range of questions, searches and supplemental checks to protect the purchaser and their mortgage company (if there is to be a mortgage) from expensive, avoidable problems. Conveyancing in Richmond Upon Thames involves obtaining information from an array of third parties, for example other property lawyer, local councils, private companies, mortgage companies. Many of these are well organised. Plenty aren't. And remember, it doesn't matter how quickly your property lawyer do their work, if the people you are purchasing from or are selling to aren't ready, nothing can move forward until they are up to speed.