It is a dozen years since I purchased my property in Birmingham and the Black Country. Conveyancing solicitors have now been appointed on the sale but I can't locate the title documents. Will this jeopardise the sale?

Don’t worry too much. First there is a chance that the deeds will be kept by the lender or they may be in the possession of the conveyancers who handled the purchase. Secondly in most cases the title will be registered at the land registry and you will be able to prove you are the registered owner by your conveyancing solicitors acquiring current official copies of the land registers. The vast majority of conveyancing in Birmingham and the Black Country involves registered property but in the rare situation where your home is not registered it adds to the complexity but is resolvable.

I am purchasing my first flat in Birmingham and the Black Country with a mortgage from Yorkshire Building Society. The developers would not move on the amount so I negotiated five thousand pounds worth of additionals instead. The property agent told me not inform my conveyancer about this side-deal as it will adversely affect my loan with the bank. Is this normal?.

All lenders require a Disclosure of Incentives Form from the developer of any new build, converted or renovated property, It is available online from the Lenders’ Handbook page on the CML website. CML form is completed and handed to the lender's surveyor when the inspection is done.

Lenders have different policies on incentives. Some accept none at all, cash or physical, while others will accept cash incentives up to 5%.

Hard to understand why the representative of a builder would be suggesting you withold information from a solicitor when all this will be clearly visible on forms the builder has to supply to its solicitor, the buyer's solicitor and the surveyor.

I have been on the look out for a leasehold apartment up to £305k and identified one close by in Birmingham and the Black Country I like with amenity areas and railway links in the vicinity, however it's only got 61 remaining years left on the lease. There is not much else in Birmingham and the Black Country in this price bracket, so just wondered if I would be making a grave error acquiring a short lease?

If you require a home loan the shortness of the lease will likely be a potential deal breaker. Discount the offer by the expected lease extension will cost if not already taken into account. If the current owner has owned the property for a minimum of 2 years you can request that they start the process of the extension and then assign it to you. You can add 90 years to the existing lease with a zero ground rent applied. You should speak to your conveyancing solicitor regarding this matter.

I have been pointed in your direction by a number of selling agents in Birmingham and the Black Country to select a conveyancer using your seach tool. Is there a financial upside for Estate Agents to offer your site over alternative conveyancing organisations?

We refuse to give any financial incentive for pointing buyers and sellers our way. We found it would be just too difficult to pay a commission because members of the public would think, ‘How come the agent getting a kickback? Why am I not getting any benefit too?’ So we decided to step away from that.

I work for a long established estate agent office in Birmingham and the Black Country where we have witnessed a number of flat sales derailed as a result of leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have been given contradictory information from local Birmingham and the Black Country conveyancing solicitors. Could you confirm whether the vendor of a flat can start the lease extension formalities for the buyer?

Provided that the seller has been the owner for at least 2 years it is possible, to serve a Section 42 notice to start the lease extension process and assign the benefit of the notice to the purchaser. The benefit of this is that the buyer can avoid having to wait 2 years to extend their lease. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment needs to be completed before, or simultaneously with completion of the disposal of the property.

An alternative approach is to extend the lease informally by agreement with the landlord either before or after the sale. If you are informally negotiating there are no rules and so you cannot insist on the landlord agreeing to grant an extension or transferring the benefit of an agreement to the purchaser.

Birmingham and the Black Country Leasehold Conveyancing - Sample of Questions you should consider Prior to buying

The best form of lease arrangement is if the freehold reversion is in the ownership of the leaseholders. In this situation the leaseholders benefit from being in charge if their destiny and although a managing agent is often employed where it is bigger than a house conversion, the managing agent acts for the leaseholders themselves. What is the annual service fee and ground rent? The majority of Birmingham and the Black Country leasehold flats will be liable to pay a service bill for the upkeep of the building invoiced by the management company. Where you acquire the property you will have to pay this amount, normally in instalments accross the year. This can differ from several hundred pounds to thousands of pounds for buildings with lifts and large common areas. In all probability there will be a rentcharge to be met yearly, normally this is not a large amount, say around £50-£100 but you should to enquire as occasionally it can be many hundreds of pounds.