I have been on the look out for a ground for flat up to £235,500 and identified one near me in Prestbury I like with open areas and transport links nearby, however it only has 49 years unexpired on the lease. There is not much else in Prestbury in this price bracket, so just wondered if I would be making a grave error buying a short lease?

If you need a home loan the remaining unexpired lease term may be an issue. Reduce the offer by the anticipated lease extension will cost if it has not already been discounted. If the current proprietor has owned the property for a minimum of 2 years you could ask them to start the process of the extension and pass it to you. An additional ninety years can be extended on to the current lease term and have £0 ground rent by law. You should speak to your conveyancing solicitor about this.

Given that I am about to spend over three hundred thousand on a garden flat in Prestbury I would like to have a conversation with the lawyer concerning theconveyancing prior to giving the go ahead to the firm. Is this something that you can arrange?

This is something that we recommend - we would be pleased to talk to you we do not take any clients on without you liaising with the solicitor who will be conducting your conveyancing in Prestbury.There is no ‘factory style conveyancing’ - every client is an important person, not a file number. The law firms that we put you in touch with believe that the fees you are calculated and presented to you for your conveyancing in Prestbury should be the figure that you end up paying.

Am I best advised to instruct a Prestbury conveyancing solicitor based in the area that I am purchasing? We have a good friend who can perform the conveyancing but they are based a couple of hundredkilometers drive away.

The benefit of a high street Prestbury conveyancing firm is that you can attend the office to execute documents, deliver your identification documents and pester them where appropriate. Having local Prestbury know how is a bonus. However nothing is more important than finding someone that will pull out all the stops for you. If if people you trust instructed your friend and on the whole were content that must trump using an unknown Prestbury conveyancing lawyer just because they are based in the area.

Our conveyancer has advised that he intends to complete and exchange simultaneously on the disposal of our £300,000 flat in Prestbury in just under a week. The management company has quoted £408 for Landlord’s certificate, building insurance schedule and previous years statements of service charge. Is it legal for a freeholder to charge exorbitant fees for a leasehold conveyance in Prestbury?

For the majority of leasehold sales in Prestbury conveyancing will involve, queries regarding the management of a building inevitably needing to be answered directly by the freeholder or its agent, this includes :

Answering pre-contract enquiries Where consent is required before sale in Prestbury Copies of the building insurance and schedule Deeds of covenant upon sale Registering of the assignment of the change of lessee after a sale

Your lawyer will have no control over the level of the charges for this information but the average costs for the information for Prestbury leasehold premises is £350. For Prestbury conveyancing transactions it is customary for the seller to pay for these costs. The landlord or their agents are under no legal obligation to answer such questions most will be willing to do so - albeit often at exorbitant prices where the fees bear little relation to the work involved. Unfortunately there is no law that requires fixed charges for administrative tasks. Neither is there any legal time frame by which they are obliged to supply answers.

I inherited a 1 bedroom flat in Prestbury, conveyancing formalities finalised in 2012. Can you let me have an estimated range of the fair premium for a lease extension? Similar properties in Prestbury with over 90 years remaining are worth £176,000. The average or mid-range amount of ground rent is £50 invoiced annually. The lease terminates on 21st October 2104

With 80 years unexpired we estimate the price of your lease extension to be between £8,600 and £9,800 plus professional fees.

The suggested premium range that we have given is a general guide to costs for renewing a lease, but we are not able to supply the actual costs without more comprehensive due diligence. You should not use the figures in tribunal or court proceedings. There may be other issues that need to be taken into account and you obviously should be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. Neither should you move forward placing reliance on this information before seeking the advice of a professional.

My fiance and I are buying a three bedroom maisonettein Prestbury with a mortgage from a lender. We have selected a lawyer in Prestbury yet our bank advise he's not on their "panel". It seems we have little choice but to instruct from the our bank panel firms or stay with our Prestbury solicitor and pay for one of their panel ones to represent them. We feel as though this is unjust; Can we not simply insist that our bank use our Prestbury lawyer?

No, not really. The lender mortgage issued is subject to conditions, one of which will be that solicitors will on the mortgage company's conveyancing panel. in the past, most banks had open panels, including almost all conveyancing solicitors in Prestbury : a borrower could choose one for themselves, as long as it was on the lender's panel. The lender would then simply instruct the borrower's lawyers to act for the lender, too. You can use your lender's panel lawyers or you could borrow from another lender which does not restrict your choice. A further alternative is for your lawyer to apply to be on the conveyancing panel for your bank.