My husband and I are looking to purchase a flat in Morganstown and have appointed a Morganstown conveyancing firm. Within the past 48 hours our solicitor has forwarded the sale agreement to be signed with a detailed report in anticipation of exchanging contracts shortly. Coventry Building Society have this morning contacted us to inform me that there is now an issue as our Morganstown conveyancer is not on their approved list of lawyers. Is this a problem?

When purchasing a property with mortgage finance it is standard for the purchasers' solicitors to also represent 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 Accreditation Scheme. Your solicitor should contact your lender and see if they can apply for membership of their conveyancing panel, but if that is not viable they will instruct their own lawyers to represent them. You don't have to instruct a firm on the lender’s conveyancing panel as you are at liberty to use your preferred Morganstown lawyers, in which case it will likely add costs, and it may delay matters as you are adding another lawyer into the mix.

My friend recommended that where I am purchasing in Morganstown I should ask my conveyancer to execute a Neighbourhood, Planning and Local Amenity Search. Can you explain what the purpose of this search is?

This is a search is usually quoted for as part of the standard Morganstown conveyancing searches. It is a large document of about 40 pages, listing and detailing significant information about Morganstown around the property and the people living there. It includes an Aerial Photograph, Planning Applications, Land Use, Mobile Phone Masts, Rights of Way, the Morganstown Housing Market, Council Tax Banding, the demographics of People living in the area, the dominant type of Housing, the Average House Prices, Crime details, Morganstown Education with plans and statistics, Local Amenities and other useful data regarding Morganstown.

I have been on the look out for a ground for flat up to £305k and identified one round the corner in Morganstown I like with amenity areas and transport links nearby, however it's only got 51 years unexpired on the lease. I can't really find anything else in Morganstown in this price bracket, so just wondered if I would be making a grave error purchasing a lease with such few years left?

Should you require a home loan that many years may be problematic. Reduce the offer by the amount the lease extension will cost if not already taken into account. If the existing owner has owned the property for at least twenty four months you may request that they commence the lease extension formalities and pass it to you. You can add 90 years to the current lease term and have £0 ground rent by law. You should speak to your conveyancing solicitor concerning this.

How do I use your search tool to get a quote from a conveyancing lawyer in Morganstown on the panel for my lender?

1st pick a mortgage company such as Accord Mortgages Ltd, Coventry Building Society or Clydesdale then type in your location e.g. Morganstown. Conveyancing organisations in Morganstown and across England and Wales will then be shown.

I am on look out for some leasehold conveyancing in Morganstown. Before I set the wheels in motion I would like to find out the unexpired term of the lease.

Assuming the lease is registered - and 99.9% are in Morganstown - then the leasehold title will always include the short particulars of the lease, namely the date; the term; and the original parties. From a conveyancing perspective such details then enable any prospective buyer and lender to confirm that any lease they are looking at is the one relevant to that title. For any other purpose, such as confirming how long the term was granted for and calculating what is left, then the register should be sufficient on it's own.

Morganstown Leasehold Conveyancing - Examples of Questions you should ask before buying

Please note that where the lease has less than 80 years it will have adverse implications on the salability of the property. Check with your lender that they are willing to to proceed given the lease term. Leases with less than 80 years remaining means that you will most likely have to extend the lease at some point and you need to have some idea of how much this would cost. For most Morganstownlease extensions you would need to own the premises for 24 months in order to be entitled to exercise a lease extension. Most Morganstown leasehold properties will be liable to pay a service charge for the upkeep of the building levied on behalf of the management company. If you acquire the apartment you will have to pay this liability, normally in instalments accross the year. This could vary from several hundred pounds to thousands of pounds for bigger purpose-built buildings. There will also be a ground rent for you to pay yearly, this is usually not a significant sum, say around £25-£75 but you should to enquire it because occasionally it can be many hundreds of pounds. Does the lease have in excess of 90 years remaining?