My fiancee and I are spending time viewing flats in Hightown and I am now considering a potential offer. Is it sensible to have a conveyancer on ‘stand by’? I will be getting a home loan with Skipton.

It would be advisable to instigate your search sooner rather than later. After you have chosen your lawyer and once your offer is accepted you can instruct them to work for you and forward their details on to the EA. As you are seeking a mortgage with Skipton, ask your prospective lawyers if they are on the Skipton conveyancing panel otherwise they can't do the mortgage legal work.

The formalities of my purchase has taken place for my property in Hightown. Conveyancing was of an acceptable standard but I would like to complain about the lender. How do I make a complaint?

All lenders have complaints procedures. Your first point of contact should be one of the lender’s branches or the Customer Services Team at head office. Ordinarily complaints to a lender are sorted out very quickly. If you feel the matter is not resolved you can write to Financial Ombudsman Service who will take matters further.

After weeks of negotiation I have agreed a price on an apartment in Hightown. My financial adviser recommended their conveyancers. I paid an advanced payment of £150. A few days later, the property lawyer contacted me sheepishly admitting that they were not on the Bank of Ireland 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 Bank of Ireland 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.

4 months have elapsed since my purchase conveyancing in Hightown concluded. I have checked the Land Registry website which shows that I paid £200,000 when infact I paid £160,000. Why the discrepancy?

The price paid figure is taken from the application to register the purchase. It is the figure included in the Transfer (the legal deed which transfers the premises from one person to the other) and referred to as the 'consideration' or purchase price. You can report an error in the price paid figure using the LR online form. In most cases errors result from typos so at first glance the figure. Do report it so they can double check and advise.

Due to the input of my in-laws I had a survey completed on a property in Hightown in advance of retaining conveyancers. I have been told that there is a flying freehold overhang to the property. Our surveyor advised that some banks will refuse to issue a mortgage on such a home.

It depends who your proposed lender is. Lloyds has different instructions from Birmingham Midshires. If you contact us we can investigate further via the relevant lender. If you lender is happy to lend one our lawyers can help as they are accustomed to dealing with flying freeholds in Hightown. Conveyancing will be smoother if you use a solicitor in Hightown especially if they are familiar with such properties in Hightown.

I am looking into buying my first house which is in Hightown and I am already nervous. I couldn't find anything specific about Hightown. Conveyancing will be needed in due course but do you know about the Hightown area? or perhaps some other tips you can share?

Rather than looking online forget looking online you should go and have a look at Hightown. In the meantime here are some basic statistics that we found

I work for a busy estate agency in Hightown where we see a few flat sales put at risk as a result of leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have received contradictory information from local Hightown conveyancing firms. Please can you clarify whether the owner of a flat can initiate the lease extension formalities for the buyer?

Provided that the seller has owned the lease for at least 2 years it is possible, to serve a Section 42 notice to kick-start the lease extension process and assign the benefit of the notice to the purchaser. The benefit of this is that the buyer need not have to sit tight for 2 years to extend their lease. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment has to be done prior to, or at the same time as completion of the disposal of the property.

Alternatively, it may be possible to extend the lease informally by agreement with the landlord either before or after the sale. If you are informally negotiating there are no rules and so you cannot insist on the landlord agreeing to grant an extension or transferring the benefit of an agreement to the buyer.

Hightown Conveyancing for Leasehold Flats - Sample of Questions you should ask before Purchasing

Is anyone aware of any major works in the near future that will likely add a premium to the maintenance fees? Does the lease have onerous restrictions?