My wife and I have recently appointed a conveyancing solicitor in Trefriw. I I am struggling to find out if they are accepted on the Accord Mortgages Ltd conveyancing panel. Could you assist?

The first thing you should do is e-mail the lawyer and enquire whether they can act for the bank. Alternatively please call Accord Mortgages Ltd who may be able to confirm.

Me and my brother own a 4 bedroom Edwardian house in Trefriw. Conveyancing solicitor represented me and Coventry Building Society. I did a free Land Registry search last week and I saw a couple of entries: one for freehold, the second leasehold with the matching address. If a house is not a freehold shouldn't I have been informed?

You need to assess the Freehold register you have again and check the Charges Register as there may be mention of a lease. The best way to be sure that you are also the registered proprietor of the leasehold and freehold title as well is to check (£3). It is not completely unheard of in Trefriw and other areas of the country and poses no real issues for owners other than when they buy they have to account for both freehold and leasehold interests when dealing with buyers. You can also enquire as to the situation with the conveyancing solicitor who conducted the purchase.

I have been on the look out for a leasehold apartment up to £235,500 and identified one round the corner in Trefriw I like with a park and station nearby, however it only has 49 years on the lease. I can't really find anything else in Trefriw in this price bracket, so just wondered if I would be making a grave error acquiring a short lease?

Should you require a mortgage the remaining unexpired lease term will likely be a potential deal breaker. Reduce the price by the expected lease extension will cost if not already taken into account. If the current proprietor has owned the property for at least 2 years you could request that they start the process of the extension and then assign it to you. An additional ninety years can be extended on to the existing lease with a zero ground rent applied. You should speak to your conveyancing lawyer about this matter.

Last November I purchased a leasehold property in Trefriw. Do I have any liability for service charges for periods before completion of my purchase?

In a situation where the service charge has already been demanded from the previous owner and they have not paid you would not usually be personally liable for the arrears. However, your landlord may still be able to take action to forfeit the lease. It is an essential part of leasehold conveyancing for your conveyancer to ensure to have an up to date clear service charge receipt before completion of your purchase. If you have a mortgage this is likely to be a requirement of your lender.

If you purchase part way through an accounting year you may be liable for charges not yet demanded even if they relate to a period prior to your purchase. In such circumstances your conveyancer would normally arrange for the seller to set aside some money to cover their part of the period (usually called a service charge retention).

I own a 2 bed flat in Trefriw, conveyancing formalities finalised in 2007. Can you give me give me an indication of the likely cost of a lease extension? Similar flats in Trefriw with over 90 years remaining are worth £195,000. The average or mid-range amount of ground rent is £45 per annum. The lease ceases on 21st October 2086

With just 63 years unexpired we estimate the premium for your lease extension to be between £16,200 and £18,600 plus costs.

The suggested premium range above a general guide to costs for renewing a lease, but we are not able to supply a more accurate figure without more detailed due diligence. Do not use the figures in a Notice of Claim or as an informal offer. There are no doubt other issues that need to be considered and you obviously should be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. You should not move forward based on this information before getting professional advice.

A licensed conveyancer acted on my conveyancing in Trefriw half a dozen years past and was holding my registration documents but has now closed – What can I do to retreive these?

Deeds, as such, are no longer appropriate for the majority of properties in Trefriw are archived electronically at Land Registry. If you need to show evidence of proprietorship or are selling or re-mortgaging your property lawyer should obtain up to date copies of the register from the Land Registry in any case.

If you feel there may be other documents or you have any other queries please e-mail your request with details of the transaction and documents you need to filerequest@clc-uk.org. The CLC will let you know what information they have and any additional information they may need before they are in a position to identify and send the documents to you. Following an intervention it may take some time for the CLC to access archived files and documents, but your request will be actioned as quickly as possible.