I am purchasing a house without a mortgage in Canning Town. I have resided for the last dozen years in Canning Town. Conveyancing searches are expensive. As I know the area and road intimately must I have all the conveyancing searches?

In the absence of a mortgage, then almost all of the Canning Town conveyancing searches are optional. Your conveyancer will 'advise', perhaps strongly, that you should have searches carried out, but he has a professional duty to do this. One thing to consider; if you are intend to dispose of the house in the future, it may be of importance to your prospective purchaser what the searches determine. There are plenty of instances where properties with apparent issues can still reveal unexpected search results. A good conveyancing solicitor in Canning Town should be able to give you some helpful guidance here.

My aunt passed away 10 months ago and as sole heir and executor I was left the house in Canning Town. The house had a small mortgage remaining of approximately £4500. I want to transfer the title deeds into my name whilst I re-mortgage to Virgin Money, pay off the mortgage. Is this possible?

Where you intend to re-mortgage then Virgin Money will insist on your using a conveyancer on the Virgin Money conveyancing panel. Here is link to the Land Registry online guidance around what to do when a property owner dies. This will help you to understand the registration process behind changing the details re the registered title. in your case it would appear that you are effectively purchasing the property from the estate. Your Virgin Money conveyancing panel solicitor pays the new mortgage money into the estate, the estate pays off the old mortgage, the charge is released and you become the owner and the Virgin Money mortgage is registered as a charge at the Land Registry.

My wife and I are selling our property in Canning Town and the buyers lawyers are claiming that there is a risk of it being built on contaminated land. A local conveyancer would know that there is no such problem. It does beg the question why the buyers used a web based conveyancing firm rather than a conveyancing solicitor in Canning Town. We have lived in Canning Town for 4 years we know that this is a non issue. Is it a good idea to contact our local Authority to obtain confirmation that there is no issue.

It sounds as though you may have a conveyancing solicitor already. What do they say? You need to check with your lawyer before you do anything. It is very possible that once the local authority has been informed of a potential issue it cannot be insured against (a bit like being diagnosed with a serious illness and then taking out health insurance to cover that same sickness)

It has been 3 months following my purchase conveyancing in Canning Town completed. I have checked the Land Registry site which shows that I paid £200,000 when infact I paid £180,000. Why the discrepancy?

The price paid figure is taken from the application to register the purchase. It is the figure included in the Transfer (the legal deed which transfers the property from one person to the other) and referred to as the 'consideration' or purchase price. You can report an error in the price paid figure using the LR online form. In most cases errors result from typos so at first glance the figure. Do report it so they can double check and advise.

I am buying my first flat in Canning Town with a mortgage from National Westminster Bank. The sellers would not move on the price so I negotiated £7000 of fixtures and fittings instead. The house builders rep told me not to tell my lawyer about this side-deal as it would put at risk my mortgage with National Westminster Bank. Do I keep my lawyer in the dark?.

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.