Our nephew is about to exchange on a new build apartment in Retford with a home loan from TSB. His conveyancer has advised him of a delay in receiving the ‘Disclosure of Incentive Form’. Who needs to receive the form?

The form is intended to provide information to the main parties engaged in the transaction. Therefore, it will be provided to your son’s lawyer who should be on the TSB conveyancing panel as a standard part of the process, and to the surveyor when requested. The developer will be required to start the process by downloading the form and completing it. The form will therefore need to be available for the valuer at the time of his or her site visit. The form should be sent to the TSB conveyancing panel solicitor as early as possible, in order to avoid any last minute delays, and no later than at exchange of contracts.

Do I need to attend the offices of the solicitor to execute the mortgage deed? If so, I will choose one who does conveyancing in Retford so that I can attend their offices if necessary.

As opposed to twenty years ago, almost all lenders no longer require their conveyancing panel solicitor to witness the mortgagors signature. You will still be obliged to provide identification documents and there are still distinct advantages to using a locally based ayer, in your situation a conveyancing solicitor in Retford.

I have justbecome aware that Wolstenholmes have closed. They carried out my conveyancing in Retford for a purchase of a leasehold apartment 12 months ago. How can I establish that my home is not still registered in the name of the previous owner?

The easiest method to see if the premises is registered to you, you can carry out a search of the land registry (£3.00). You can either do this yourself or ask a law firm to do this for you. If you are not registered you can seek help from one of a number of Retford conveyancing specialists.

Can you provide any advice for leasehold conveyancing in Retford with the intention of saving time on the sale process?

• Much of the delay in leasehold conveyancing in Retford can be reduced where you appoint lawyers as soon as your agents start marketing the property and request that they start to collate the leasehold documentation which will be required by the purchasers’ solicitors.
Some Retford leases require Licence to Assign from the landlord. If this applies to your lease, it would be prudent to notify your estate agents to make sure that the purchasers obtain financial (bank) and professional references. The bank reference should make it clear that the buyer is financially capable of paying the annual service charge and the actual amount of the service charge should be quoted in the bank’s letter. You will therefore need to provide your estate agents with the service charge figures so that they can pass this information on to the buyers or their lawyers. If you are supposed to have a share in the freehold, you should make sure that you have the original share document. Organising a duplicate share certificate can be a time consuming process and slows down many a Retford conveyancing transaction. If a reissued share is needed, do contact the company director and secretary or managing agents (if applicable) for this as soon as possible. You may think that you are aware of the number of years remaining on your lease but you should double-check via your conveyancers. A purchaser's conveyancer will not be happy to advise their client to to exchange contracts if the remaining number of years is below 75 years. In the circumstances it is important at an early stage that you consider whether the lease term for your property needs extending. If it does, contact your solicitors before you put your premises on the market for sale.

Leasehold Conveyancing in Retford - A selection of Queries Prior to buying

Many Retford leasehold flats will have a service charge for maintenance of the block levied by the management company. Should you purchase the apartment you will have to pay this amount, usually in instalments accross the year. This may be anything from a couple of hundred pounds to thousands of pounds for buildings with lifts and large common grounds. There will also be a rentcharge to be met yearly, ordinarily this is not a large sum, say approximately £50-£100 but you should to enquire it because occasionally it can be many hundreds of pounds. Are any of leasehold owners in arrears of their service charge liability? What is the length of the lease?

My wife and I have just had an offer agreed on a apartment and had an appointment on Wednesday with Nationwide for the mortgage. They warned me that when it comes to selecting a conveyancing practitioner that if they are not on their approved panel of lawyers then we will have to pay out an extra fee of about two hundred pounds. This is because they would then have to instruct a solicitor to act on their behalf as well as the one we appoint for ourselves and we are liable for their costs. I have asked Nationwide to provide me with a list so I can seek quotes only from their approved conveyancers but was told that I need to check with each individual conveyancer to see if they are on the panel. Is there a simple way of finding out who is on a lender panel?

You can enquire of Nationwide what their criteria for joining their panel is for a solicitor.Then ask the property lawyer of your choice whether they fit that criteria and have they acted on mortgages for Nationwide in the past. If the answer to those is yes, then just double check with Nationwide. Another option is to make use of our search tool and we may be able to find you a lawyer in Retford on the panel for Nationwide.