My husband and I have arranged the release of further monies on our home loan from as we want to conduct a loft conversion to our home in Cheetham. Are we obliged to appoint a bricks and mortar Cheetham solicitor on the conveyancing panel to handle the legals?

don't usually require a member of their conveyancing panel to deal with such a matter. If they do require any legal work then you would need to ensure that such a lawyer was on the panel.

I am currently in the process of buying my council flat in Cheetham. I have a mortgage agreed with . Conveyancing is new to me. Can I proceed without a solicitor easily? I think we can but we keep being told I should use one. Any advice?

It is not advisable to proceed with a house purchase without a solicitor. The council's solicitor are not acting for you. You need a solicitor for a number reasons. One of which is to verify what plans the Council have for repairs and refurbishment for the next five years. Many leaseholders have been stung for contributions of thousands of pounds. In any event, if you are getting a mortgage with , you will need to appoint a solicitor on the conveyancing panel.

I recently had an offer agreed on a house in Cheetham. My financial adviser suggested a . I paid an on account payment of £225. Not long after, the called me to say that they were not on the 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 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 friend recommended that if I am purchasing in Cheetham I should ask my conveyancer to perform a Neighbourhood, Planning and Local Amenity Search. Can you explain what the purpose of this search is?

A search of this type is occasionally included in the estimate for your Cheetham conveyancing searches. It is not a small report of about 40 pages, listing and detailing important information about Cheetham around the property and the people living there. It incorporates an Aerial Photograph, Planning Applications, Land Use, Mobile Phone Masts, Rights of Way, the Cheetham Housing Market, Council Tax Banding, the type of People living in the area, the dominant type of Housing, the Average House Prices, Crime statistics, Cheetham Education with maps and statistics, Local Amenities and other useful data concerning Cheetham.

I have todayfound out that Wolstenholmes have closed. They conducted my conveyancing in Cheetham for a purchase of a freehold house 12 months ago. How can I establish that the property is not still registered in the name of the former proprietor?

The easiest way to check if the premises is registered to you, you can make a search of the land registry (£3.00). You can either do this yourself or ask a law firm to do this for you. If you are not registered you can seek help from one of a number of Cheetham conveyancing specialists.

I am purchasing a new build house in Cheetham with a mortgage from . The sellers refused to budge the price so I negotiated 6k of extras instead. The sale representative told me not inform my solicitor about the extras as it would put at risk my loan with the lender. 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.

Over the last few months I have been searching for a leasehold apartment up to £195,000 and found one close by in Cheetham I like with amenity areas and transport links in the vicinity, however it only has 61 remaining years left on the lease. There is not much else in Cheetham for this price, so just wondered if I would be making a mistake purchasing a short lease?

Should you require a home loan the remaining unexpired lease term will likely be an issue. Discount the offer by the anticipated lease extension will cost if it has not already been discounted. If the existing owner has owned the property for at least 2 years you may ask them to start the process of the extension and then assign it to you. You can add 90 years to the existing lease and have £0 ground rent by law. You should speak to your conveyancing lawyer regarding this matter.