I am in the process of selling my house in Carshalton Beeches and the estate agent has just e-mailed to say that the purchasers are changing their law firm. The excuse is that the bank will only engage with property lawyers on their approved list. Why would a leading lender only engage with specific law firms rather the firm that they want to select for their conveyancing in Carshalton Beeches ?

Mortgage companies have always had an approved set of law firms they are content to work with, but in the past few years big names such as Yorkshire Building Society, have considered and reduced their conveyancing panel– in some cases removing conveyancing firms who have represented them for decades.

Banks point to the increase in fraud as the reason for the pruning – criteria have been tightened as a smaller panel is easier to keep an eye on. Banks tend not to disclose how many solicitors have been dropped, claiming the information is commercially sensitive, but the Law Society says it is hearing daily from firms that have been removed from panels. Plenty of firms do not even realise they have been dropped until contacted by a borrower who has instructed them as might be the situation in your buyers' case. The buyers are unlikely to have any sway in the decision.

This question may be naive but I am unexperienced as FTB of a garden flat in Carshalton Beeches. Do I collect the keys to the premises on the completion date from my solicitor? If this is the case, I will find a local conveyancing solicitor in Carshalton Beeches?

On the day of completion you will not be required to attend the conveyancers office in Carshalton Beeches. Conveyancing lawyers for you will electronically transfer the completion advance to the owner’s conveyancers, and shortly after the monies have arrived, you should be invited to collect the keys from the property Agents and start moving into the property. This tends to happen early afternoon.

I currently have a mortgage with Principality for my property in Carshalton Beeches. Conveyancing was finalised 12 months ago. If I am intending to rent out my property and do not currently have a buy-to-let mortgage do I need to remortgage to a buy-to-let mortgage or inform Principality?

Your original mortgage agreement with Principality will provide that you need their approval prior to renting your property as this is likely to be a breach of Principality’s mortgage conditions. It may be that Principality will permit you to let out your former home without needing to switch to a buy-to-let mortgage but some lenders will add a surcharge to your mortgage rate to reflect the higher risk. You should contact Principality directly. It should not be necessary to do this via a Principality conveyancing panel solicitor.

I recently had an offer accepted on a house in Carshalton Beeches. My mortgage broker recommended their conveyancers. I paid an on account payment of £175. Not long after, the property lawyer contacted me embarrassingly acknowledging that they were not on the UBS conveyancing panel. Am I right in thinking that I should be due a refund?

You should be able to recover this from the law firm if they were not on the UBS panel. They should have asked at the outset which lender you were obtaining a mortgage with. An important lesson to readers of this site is to check that the lawyers are on the appropriate lender panel.

A relative advised me that if I am purchasing in Carshalton Beeches I should ask my conveyancer to execute a Neighbourhood, Planning and Local Amenity Search. Can you explain what the purpose of this search is?

This is a search is sometimes quoted for as part of the standard Carshalton Beeches conveyancing searches. It is not a small report of about 40 pages, listing and detailing important information about Carshalton Beeches around the property and the people living there. It incorporates an Aerial Photograph, Planning Applications, Land Use, Mobile Phone Masts, Rights of Way, the Carshalton Beeches Housing Market, Council Tax Banding, the type of People living in the area, the dominant type of Housing, the Average House Prices, Crime statistics, Carshalton Beeches Education with plans and statistics, Local Amenities and other useful information concerning Carshalton Beeches.

Are there restrictive covenants that are commonly identified as part of conveyancing in Carshalton Beeches?

Covenants that are restrictive in nature can be picked up when reviewing land registry title as part of the legal transfer of property in Carshalton Beeches. An 1874 stipulation that was seen was ‘The houses to be erected on the estate are each to be of a uniform elevation in accordance with the drawings to be prepared or approved by the vendor’s surveyor…’

Having had my offer accepted I require leasehold conveyancing in Carshalton Beeches. Before diving in I require certainty as to the number of years remaining on the lease.

Assuming the lease is registered - and 99.9% are in Carshalton Beeches - then the leasehold title will always include the short particulars of the lease, namely the date; the term; and the original parties. From a conveyancing perspective such details then enable any prospective buyer and lender to confirm that any lease they are looking at is the one relevant to that title. For any other purpose, such as confirming how long the term was granted for and calculating what is left, then the register should be sufficient on it's own.

I am the proprietor of a a ground floor purpose built flat in Carshalton Beeches. In the absence of agreement between myself and the landlord, can the Leasehold valuation Tribunal determine the sum due for the purchase of the freehold?

Where there is a absentee landlord or if there is disagreement about what the lease extension should cost, under the relevant statutes it is possible to make an application to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) to arrive at the sum to be paid.

An example of a Freehold Enfranchisement matter before the tribunal for a Carshalton Beeches residence is 223 Brighton Road in September 2013. The premium payable for the acquisition freehold of the properties should be £10,934 (Ten thousand,nine hundred and thirty four pounds) This case affected 3 flats. The number of years remaining on the existing lease(s) was 75 years.