I require conveyancing for an apartment in a fairly new development (seven years old) in Highbury. 95% of the properties have already been sold. Is it strictly necessary to order neighbourhood searches as part of conveyancing in Highbury?

A big part of the Highbury legal transfer of property is the conveyancing searches. There are hundreds search providers who offer Highbury conveyancing searches, as well direct from the local authority. These are generally termed personal search companies and they produce, not surprisingly, personal searches. Nevertheless, all Local Authority Search conveyancing products have one thing in common - they must secure their information from the local authoritative source.

Why is leasehold purchase conveyancing in Highbury is more expensive?

The conveyancing fees on a leasehold property in Highbury is inevitably more expensive when contrasted to a freehold acquisition or disposal. This is because there is an amount of additional time necessary in corresponding with the landlord and managing agents to obtain information concerning whether the rent and maintenance fee have been discharged and whether there are any major works due in the foreseeable future on repairs or maintenance of the building.

Despite weeks of looking the Title Certificate and documents to our property are lost. The conveyancers who did the conveyancing in Highbury 4 years ago no longer exist. What are my next steps?

Assuming the title is registered the details of your ownership will be recorded by the Land Registry under a Title Number. It is possible to conduct a search at the Land Registry, identify your property and secure up to date copies of the Registered Entries for a small fee. Where the title is Leasehold then the Land Registry will also normally retain a file duplicate of the Registered Lease and again, a copy can be retrieved for twenty pounds.

I decided to have a survey completed on a house in Highbury in advance of retaining conveyancers. I have been told that there is a flying freehold overhang to the property. The surveyor has said that some mortgage companies may not grant a loan on a flying freehold home.

It varies from the lender to lender. HSBC has different instructions from Nationwide. Should you wish to telephone us we can look into this further with the appropriate mortgage company. If you lender is happy to lend one our lawyers can help as they are used to dealing with flying freeholds in Highbury. Conveyancing will be smoother if you use a solicitor in Highbury especially if they are accustomed to such properties in Highbury.

We are in the process of purchasing a property in Highbury. Conveyancing is not yet done but we would like have our transaction price a secret from the likes of Rightmove. what can I do to ensure this is not noted?

HM Land Registry by statute are required to disclose price paid information on the official title for domestic properties countrywide which includes properties in Highbury. The Title Register is a public document, so HM Land Registry would be breaking the law excluded certain properties such as the property in Highbury.

You can make a request of HMLR to hide the price paid entry yet the response will be in the negative.