I am purchasing a house without a mortgage in St Fagans. I have lived for the previous 15 years in St Fagans. Conveyancing searches are a lot of money. Given that I know the road and vicinity intimately must I have all the conveyancing searches?

If you not getting a mortgage, then all but one or two of the St Fagans conveyancing searches are at your discretion. Your lawyer will try and sway you, perhaps strongly, that you should have searches completed, but he is duty bound to take that path of guidance. Do bear in mind; if you are likely to dispose of the house one day, it could be of relevance to your future purchaser what the searches reveal. There are plenty of instances where properties with no practical issues can still throw up unexpected search results. A competent conveyancing solicitor in St Fagans will provide you some constructive guidance in this regard.

I had intended to instruct a property lawyer in St Fagans for our house move. Our financial adviser informed us that our mortgage company Alliance & Leicester won't deal with them. Why is this not regarded as unfair competition?

Banks on the whole restrict either the type or the number of conveyancing solicitors on their approved list of lawyers. Typical examples of such criteria being that a law practice must have two or more partners. In addition to restricting the profile of firm, a few banks have limited the amount of solicitor practices they permit to represent them. You should note that Alliance & Leicester have no responsibility for the quality of advice provided by any member of Alliance & Leicester Conveyancer Panel. Mortgage fraud was a key driver in the reduction of conveyancing panels a few years ago even though there are mixed opinions about the extent of solicitor engagement in some of that fraud. Statistics from the Land Registry indicate that plenty of law firms, including some in or near St Fagans only carry out a couple conveyances per annum.

I have todaybeen informed that Stirling Law have closed. They conducted my conveyancing in St Fagans for a purchase of a freehold house 9 months ago. How can I establish that my home is registered correctly in the name of the former proprietor?

The easiest way to check if the property is in your name, you can make 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 St Fagans conveyancing specialists.

My fiance and I may need to let out our St Fagans 1st floor flat for a while due to a career opportunity. We instructed a St Fagans conveyancing firm in 2004 but they have since shut and we did not think at the time seek any advice as to whether the lease prohibits the subletting of the flat. How do we find out?

Some leases for properties in St Fagans do contain a provision to say that subletting is only allowed with permission. The landlord cannot unreasonably withhold but, in such cases, they would need to see references. Experience dictates that problems are usually caused by unsatisfactory tenants rather than owner-occupiers and for that reason you can expect the freeholder to take up the references and consider them carefully before granting consent.

St Fagans Leasehold Conveyancing - Examples of Questions you should ask Prior to Purchasing

How much is the ground rent and service charge? Who takes responsibility for maintaining and repairing the building? Generally speaking the cost for major works tend not to be included within service charges, although there some managing agents in St Fagans require leasehold owners to pay into a sinking fund created for the specific purpose of building a fund for major repairs or maintenance.

Are you able to shed any light on the nature of conveyancing handled by St Fagans conveyancing organisations?

Generally most St Fagans conveyancing practices manage to handle various assistance to residential and rural land owners, sellers, investors, landlords and leaseholders and you can expect them to help you with some of the following services:

Residential sale conveyancing in St Fagans and nationally Property purchase conveyancing in St Fagans and further afield Shared ownership and shared equity scheme Resolving boundary disputes between neighbours Help to Buy Conveyancing in St Fagans or countrywide Islamic mortgage transactions