My husband and I are looking to buy a home in Edenthorpe and are in fact using a Edenthorpe conveyancing practice. Within the last couple of days our lawyer has sent a preliminary report and documents to look through with a view to exchanging next week. have this afternoon contacted us to inform me that there is now an issue as our Edenthorpe lawyer is not on their approved list of lawyers. What do we do from here?

When purchasing a property with the benefit of a mortgage it is usual for the purchasers' lawyers to also act for the purchaser's lender. In order to act for a bank or building society a law firm has to be on that lender's conveyancing panel. An application has to be made by the law firm to the lender to become a member of the lender's panel and there are increasingly strict criteria which the firm has to satisfy and indeed some lenders now require their panel members to be part of the Law Society’s Conveyancing Quality Scheme. Your solicitor should contact your mortgage company and see if they can apply for membership of their conveyancing panel, but if that is not viable they will instruct their own solicitors to act. You don't have to instruct a firm on the lender’s conveyancing panel as you are at liberty to use your preferred Edenthorpe lawyers, in which case it will likely add costs, and it may delay matters as you have another set of people involved.

I am selling my apartment in Edenthorpe. Will my have to be required to be on the conveyancing panel in order to deal with paying off my mortgage?

Ordinarily, even if your lawyer is not on the conveyancing panel they can still act for you on your sale. It might be that the lender will not release the original deeds (if applicable and increasingly irrelevant) until after the mortgage is paid off. You should speak to your lawyer directly before you start the process though to ensure that there is no problem as lenders are changing their panel criteria fairly frequently at the moment.

A relative advised me that where I am buying in Edenthorpe I should ask my conveyancer to execute a Neighbourhood, Planning and Local Amenity Search. What does it cover?

A search of this type is usually included in the estimate for your Edenthorpe conveyancing searches. It is not a small document of about 40 pages, listing and detailing significant information about Edenthorpe around the property and the people living there. It includes an Aerial Photograph, Planning Applications, Land Use, Mobile Phone Masts, Rights of Way, the Edenthorpe Housing Market, Council Tax Banding, the type of People living in the area, the dominant type of Housing, the Average Property Price, Crime details, Local Education with plans and statistics, Local Amenities and other useful data about Edenthorpe.

I purchased a 4 bedroom Edwardian house in Edenthorpe. Conveyancing solicitor represented me and . I happened to do a free search for it on the Land Registry database and I saw a couple of entries: one for freehold, another for leasehold under the matching property. Is it worth asking to clarify?

You should review the Freehold register you have again and check the Charges Register as there may be mention of a lease. The best way to be sure that you are also the registered proprietor of the leasehold and freehold title as well is to check (£3). It is not completely unheard of in Edenthorpe and other locations in the country and poses no real issues for owners other than when they sell they have to account for both freehold and leasehold interests when dealing with purchasers. You can also enquire as to the position with the conveyancing lawyer who completed the work.

I bought a split level flat in Edenthorpe, conveyancing formalities finalised 1995. How much will my lease extension cost? Similar properties in Edenthorpe with a long lease are worth £165,000. The average or mid-range amount of ground rent is £45 charged once a year. The lease terminates on 21st October 50

You have 50 years remaining on your lease the likely cost is going to range between £36,100 and £41,800 plus professional fees.

The figure above a general guide to costs for renewing a lease, but we cannot give you a more accurate figure in the absence of comprehensive investigations. You should not use the figures in a Notice of Claim or as an informal offer. There are no doubt other issues that need to be taken into account and clearly you should be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. Neither should you move forward based on this information without first getting professional advice.