It is a dozen years since I purchased my home in Didcot. Conveyancing lawyers have recently been appointed on the sale but I can't locate the title deeds. Will this cause complications?

You need not be too concerned. First there is a possibility that the deeds will be kept by the lender or they may stored with the lawyers who acted in your purchase. Secondly in most cases the property will be registered at the land registry and you will be able to establish that you are the registered owner by your conveyancing lawyers obtaining up to date copy of the land registers. Most conveyancing in Didcot relates to registered property but in the unlikely event that your home is unregistered it adds to the complexity but is not insurmountable.

My conveyancer has informed me that lack of planning permission insurance is necessary on my purchase. What is the level of cover for Didcot conveyancing?

The right level of lack of planning permission indemnity insurance should be dictated by who your lender. It would differ for example between Lloyds TSB Bank and Norwich and Peterborough Building Society. Conveyancing lawyers as opposed to borrowers take out such insurances.

I happen to be the sole beneficiary of my late grandmother’s will and I have everything in my name alone, including the my former home in Didcot. Conveyancing formalities meant that the Land Registry date was in October. I now wish to sell up. I understand that there is a Mortgage Lenders 6 month 'rule', meaning my property ownership could be considered the same way as if I'd bought the property in October. Will no one buy the property for half a year?

The Council of Mortgage Lenders’ handbook obliges conveyancers to: "report to us immediately if the owner or registered proprietor has been registered for less than six months." Technically you could be affected by that. How practical a view mortgage companies take of it, depend on the mortgage company as this provision is chiefly there to pick up on subsales or the quick reselling of properties.

My wife and I have arranged a further advance on our mortgage from Barclays as we want to carry out improvements to our home in Didcot. Are we obliged to select a bricks and mortar Didcot solicitor on the Barclays conveyancing panel to deal with the paperwork?

Barclays don't usually instruct a member of their approved list of lawyers to handle the formalities. If they do require any legal work then you would need to ensure that such a lawyer was on the Barclays conveyancing panel.

I completed on my home on 6 September and the transaction details is yet to be on the land registry website. Should I be concerned? My conveyancing solicitor in Didcot advises it will be registered inside ten days. Are titles in Didcot particularly slow to register?

As far as conveyancing in Didcot is concerned, registration is no quicker or slower than the rest of the country. As opposed to being determined by geographic area, timescales can differ depending on the party submitting the application, whether it is in order and if the Land registry need to notify any other persons or bodies. At present in the region of 80% of such applications are fully addressed within two weeks but some can be subject to protracted hold-ups. Registration is effected after the buyer is living at the premises so an expedited registration is not always an essential issue yet where it is urgent that the the registration takes place urgently then you or your lawyers can communicate with the Registry to express the reasoning for an expedited registration.

I am purchasing my first flat in Didcot with a mortgage from The Mortgage Works. The sellers would not reduce the amount so I negotiated 6k of extras instead. The property agent suggested that I not reveal to my lawyer about the side-deal as it may affect my loan with the lender. Is this normal?.

All lenders require a Disclosure of Incentives Form from the builder 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 just started marketing my ground floor flat in Didcot. Conveyancing lawyers have not yet been instructed, however I have recently had a half-yearly maintenance charge demand – should I leave it to the buyer to sort out?

It best that you clear the invoice as usual given that all rents and service payments should be apportioned as part of the financial calculations for completion monies, so you will be reimbursed by the buyer for the period running from after the completion date to the subsequent invoice date. Most managing agents will not acknowledge the buyer until the service charges have been paid and are up to date, so it is important for both buyer and seller for the seller to show that they are up to date. Having a clear account will assist your cause and will leave you no worse off financially.

I inherited a 1 bedroom flat in Didcot, conveyancing was carried out half a dozen years ago. Can you shed any light on how much the price could be for a 90 year extension to my lease? Corresponding properties in Didcot with a long lease are worth £197,000. The average or mid-range amount of ground rent is £55 charged once a year. The lease ceases on 21st October 2080

You have 55 years unexpired we estimate the premium for your lease extension to range between £31,400 and £36,200 as well as plus your own and the landlord's "reasonable" professional fees.

The figure that we have given is a general guide to costs for extending a lease, but we cannot give you a more accurate figure in the absence of comprehensive investigations. You should not use this information in a Notice of Claim or as an informal offer. There may be other issues that need to be taken into account and you obviously want to be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. Neither should you take any other action based on this information before seeking the advice of a professional.