My partner and I are planning to buy a flat in Workington and have instructed a Workington conveyancing practice. Within the last couple of days our lawyer has sent a preliminary report and documents to look through in anticipation of exchanging contracts shortly. Alliance & Leicester have this morning contacted us to advise us that they have now hit a problem as our Workington solicitor is not on their approved list of lawyers. Please explain?

When purchasing a property with the benefit of a mortgage it is conventional for the purchasers' lawyers 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 bank and see if they can apply for membership of their conveyancing panel, but if that is not viable they will instruct their own solicitors to act. You are not legally obliged to appoint a law firm on the bank's conveyancing panel as you are at liberty to use your preferred Workington lawyers, in which case it will likely add costs, and it may delay matters as you have another set of people involved.

My husband and I swapping mortgage lender for our apartment in Workington with Nottingham. We have a son approaching twenty who lives at home. Our solicitor requested us to identify any adults other than ourselves who reside at the property. The solicitor has now sent a form for our son to sign, giving up any rights in the event that the flat is repossessed. I have two questions (1) Is this form unique to the Nottingham conveyancing panel as he never had to sign this form when we remortgaged 3 years ago (2) Does our son by signing this giving up his rights to inherit the property?

On the face of it your lawyer has done nothing wrong as it is established procedure for any occupier who is aged 17 or over to sign the necessary Consent Form, which is purely to state that any rights he has in the property are postponed and secondary to Nottingham. This is solely used to protect Nottingham if the property were re-possessed so that in such circumstances, your son would be legally obliged to leave. It does not impact your son’s right to inherit the apartment. Please note that if your son were to inherit and the mortgage in favour of Nottingham had not been discharged, he would be liable to take over the loan or pay it off, but other than that, there is nothing stopping him from keeping the property in accordance with your will or the rules of intestacy.

The estate agent has sent us the confirmation of our purchase of a new build flat in Workington. Conveyancing is daunting at the best of times but I have never purchased a new build flat before. What sort of enquires would be asked in new build legal work.

Set out below are examples of a selection of leasehold new build enquiries that you may expect your new-build leasehold conveyancing in Workington

Please confirm the Lease plans are surveyor prepared. If there are lifts in the building, please confirm that the owners of flats on the ground and basement floors will not be required to contribute towards the cost of maintenance and renewal. The Vendor must covenant to keep unsold units in good repair until long leases are granted therefore. The Landlord must covenant to assume the management if the Management Company goes into liquidation or otherwise defaults in running the management scheme. Investor purchasers must be able to freely grant unsecured tenancies at market rents without requiring any consents.

I need to appoint a conveyancing solicitor for some conveyancing in Workington. I happened to discover a web site which seems to have the ideal offering If it is possible to get all this stuff done via email that would be ideal. Should I be wary? What are the potential pitfalls?

As usual with these online conveyancers you need to read ALL the small print - did you notice the extra charge for dealing with the mortgage?

Estate agents have just been given the go-ahead to market my 2 bed apartment in Workington. Conveyancing has not commenced, but I have recently received a half-yearly service charge demand – what should I do?

The sensible thing to do is pay the invoice as usual because all rents and maintenance payments will be allotted on completion, so you will be reimbursed by the buyer for the period running from after the completion date to the subsequent invoice date. Most management companies will not acknowledge the buyer until the service charges have been paid and are up to date, so it is important for both buyer and seller for the seller to show that they are up to date. This will smooth the conveyancing process.

I am the registered owner of a 2 bed flat in Workington, conveyancing was carried out half a dozen years ago. Can you let me have an estimate of the premium that my landlord can legally expect in return for granting a renewal of my lease? Equivalent flats in Workington with a long lease are worth £222,000. The ground rent is £50 charged once a year. The lease terminates on 21st October 2093

With just 70 years unexpired we estimate the premium for your lease extension to span between £9,500 and £11,000 plus professional fees.

The suggested premium range that we have given is a general guide to costs for extending a lease, but we are not able to provide the actual costs in the absence of comprehensive investigations. Do not use the figures in tribunal or court proceedings. There may be additional issues that need to be taken into account and you obviously should be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. You should not take any other action placing reliance on this information without first getting professional advice.