The Altrincham conveyancing solicitors that I appointed last week on my house acquisition in Altrincham have without warning closed. They were on acting for me because I had to have a lawyer on the Barclays conveyancing panel and my family Altrincham lawyer was not. I cut them a cheque for £250 in advance. What do I do now?

If you have an estate agent involved then inform them straight away so that they advise the vendors that there may be a slight delay due to reasons beyond your control. Hopefully they will be sympathetic and urge their lawyer to send a new set of papers to your new solicitors. You will need to appoint new lawyers that are on the Barclays conveyancing panel and notify the lender. If you have paid over any money, it will hopefully be held by the SRA as money in an intervened firm's bank accounts is transferred to the SRA. Then, the SRA or the intervention agent looks at the intervened firm's accounts to work out who the money belongs to. To claim your money you will need to contact the SRA. If the SRA cannot return money you are owed from the firm's bank accounts, or if they can only return part of the money, you can apply to the Compensation Fund for a grant. Your new solicitors should be in a position to assist.

four months have gone by following my purchase conveyancing in Altrincham completed. I have checked the Land Registry website which shows that I paid £150,000 when infact I paid £170,000. Why the discrepancy?

The price paid figure is taken from the application to register the purchase. It is the figure included in the Transfer (the legal deed which transfers the property from one person to the other) and referred to as the 'consideration' or purchase price. You can report an error in the price paid figure using the LR online form. In most cases errors result from typos so at first glance the figure. Do report it so they can double check and advise.

The estate agent has sent us the confirmation of our purchase of a new build flat in Altrincham. Conveyancing is a frightening process at the best of times but I have never purchased a new build flat before. Can you give me some examples of some of the questions asked in new build legal work.

Here is a sample of a few leasehold new build questions that you can expect your new-build leasehold conveyancing in Altrincham

There must be mutual enforceability of lessee’s covenants. Where service of notices and proceedings can be at the property demised please confirm that this can be amended to include simultaneous services at the Lessees’ solicitors’ offices where the Lessee from time to time is not resident in the UK - such solicitors may be varied by notice in writing to the Landlord from time to time but otherwise will be as previously specified. The Landlord must covenant to assume the management if the Management Company goes into liquidation or otherwise defaults in running the management scheme. Please provide evidence that the form of Lease proposed has been approved by the Land Registry. Please supply a car parking plan.

I need to find a conveyancing solicitor for some conveyancing in Altrincham. I've chance upon a web site which looks to be the perfect solution If it is possible to get all the legals completed via web that would be ideal. Should I be wary? What should out be looking out for?

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?

I am employed by a long established estate agent office in Altrincham where we have witnessed a number of leasehold sales jeopardised due to leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have received inconsistent advice from local Altrincham conveyancing solicitors. Can you confirm whether the owner of a flat can start the lease extension process for the purchaser on completion of the sale?

Provided that the seller has been the owner for at least 2 years it is possible, to serve a Section 42 notice to start the lease extension process and assign the benefit of the notice to the purchaser. The benefit of this is that the proposed purchaser need not have to wait 2 years for a lease extension. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment has to be done before, or simultaneously with completion of the disposal of the property.

An alternative approach is to extend the lease informally by agreement with the landlord either before or after the sale. If you are informally negotiating there are no rules and so you cannot insist on the landlord agreeing to grant an extension or transferring the benefit of an agreement to the buyer.

Altrincham Leasehold Conveyancing - A selection of Questions you should ask Prior to Purchasing

Who are the managing agents? The best form of lease structure is a share of the freehold. In this situation the leaseholders enjoy being in charge if their destiny and even though a managing agent is usually employed if it is larger than a house conversion, the managing agent acts for the leaseholders themselves. Plenty Altrincham leasehold flats will be liable to pay a service bill for the upkeep of the block levied by the freeholder. If you purchase the flat you will have to meet this charge, normally quarterly accross the year. This may be anything from several hundred pounds to thousands of pounds for blocks with lifts and large common grounds. There will also be a ground rent for you to pay yearly, this is usually not a significant sum, say about £25-£75 but you need to enquire it because sometimes it could be prohibitively expensive.