Having sold my house in Bury St Edmunds last January yet the purchaser is e-mailing every few hours to moan that his solicitor is waiting to hear from mine. What should my lawyer have done following completion?

Following your sale your conveyancer is duty bound to send the transfer deeds and all supplemental paperwork to the buyer’s solicitors. Where relevant, your solicitor should also evidence that the mortgage has been paid off to the purchasers conveyancers. There is unlikely to be post completion procedures specific conveyancing in Bury St Edmunds.

What can a local search inform me regarding the property I am purchasing in Bury St Edmunds?

Bury St Edmunds conveyancing often commences with the applying for local authority searches directly from your local Authority or via a personal search company for instance Onsearch The local search is essential in every Bury St Edmunds conveyancing purchase; as long as you don’t want any nasty once you have moved into your new home. The search should reveal information on, amongst other things, details on planning applications relevant to the property (whether granted or refused), building control history, any enforcement action, restrictions on permitted development, nearby road schemes, contaminated land and radon gas; in all a total of thirteen subject areas.

I used Arc property Solicitors a few years ago for my conveyancing in Bury St Edmunds. Now, I need the documents but cannot find the solicitor. What do I do?

You should call the Solicitors Regulatory Authority (SRA) to help locate your conveyancing files. They can be contacted on please contact on 0870 606 2555. Alternatively, you should use their online form to make an enquiry. You will need to provide the SRA with as much information as possible to assist their search, including the name and address in Bury St Edmunds of the conveyancing firm of solicitors you previously retained, the name of conveyancing solicitor with whom you had dealings, and the date on which you last had dealings with the firm.

I am purchasing my first flat in Bury St Edmunds benefiting from help to buy. The builders refused to budge the price so I negotiated £7000 of fixtures and fittings instead. The property agent suggested that I not reveal to my lawyer about the extras as it may adversely affect my loan with the lender. Do I keep my lawyer in the dark?.

All lenders require a Disclosure of Incentives Form from the developer of any new build, converted or renovated property, It is available online from the Lenders’ Handbook page on the CML website. CML form is completed and handed to the lender's surveyor when the inspection is done.

Lenders have different policies on incentives. Some accept none at all, cash or physical, while others will accept cash incentives up to 5%.

Hard to understand why the representative of a builder would be suggesting you withold information from a solicitor when all this will be clearly visible on forms the builder has to supply to its solicitor, the buyer's solicitor and the surveyor.

I am on look out for some leasehold conveyancing in Bury St Edmunds. Before I set the wheels in motion I would like to find out the unexpired term of the lease.

If the lease is recorded at the land registry - and most are in Bury St Edmunds - then the leasehold title will always include the short particulars of the lease, namely the date; the term; and the original parties. From a conveyancing perspective such details then enable any prospective buyer and lender to confirm that any lease they are looking at is the one relevant to that title. For any other purpose, such as confirming how long the term was granted for and calculating what is left, then the register should be sufficient on it's own.

I invested in buying a 1st floor flat in Bury St Edmunds, conveyancing was carried out half a dozen years ago. Can you work out an approximate cost of a lease extension? Similar properties in Bury St Edmunds with over 90 years remaining are worth £222,000. The ground rent is £50 invoiced annually. The lease finishes on 21st October 2096

With 71 years unexpired the likely cost is going to be between £9,500 and £11,000 plus costs.

The figure above a general guide to costs for extending a lease, but we are not able to provide a more accurate figure without more comprehensive due diligence. Do not use the figures in tribunal or court proceedings. There may be additional concerns that need to be considered and you obviously want to be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. You should not take any other action placing reliance on this information before getting professional advice.