My husband and I are planning to purchase a flat in Disley and are in fact using a Disley conveyancing practice. Within the last couple of days our property lawyer has sent a preliminary report and documents to look through in anticipation of exchanging contracts shortly. Bank of Scotland have this morning contacted us to inform me that there is now an issue as our Disley solicitor is not on their approved list of lawyers. What do we do from here?

When purchasing a property with the benefit of a mortgage it is normal 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 property lawyer should contact your lender and see if they can apply for membership of their conveyancing panel, but if that is not viable they will instruct their own lawyers to represent them. 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 Disley lawyers, in which case your legal fees may increase, and it may delay matters as you are adding another lawyer into the mix.

I have given 2 months notice to my current landlord and must be out of my rented apartment in Disley by the end of next month. Conveyancing for my house purchase has just started. How realistic is it to complete in three weeks as don't want to have to find temporary accommodation?

The normal practice is not to provide notice for your tenancy until your lawyer suggests that you should. Assuming that you have not already done so, contact to your lawyer and ask them to they cajole the other solicitors, try to a target completion date that everyone will work to achieve

We are close to exchanging contracts on the sale of our property in Disley and according to the buyers it appears that there is a possibility that the property was built on contaminated land. Any local lawyer would know this is not the case. It does beg the question why the buyers used a national conveyancing firm as opposed to a conveyancing solicitor in Disley. We have lived in Disley for 4 years we know of no issue. Should we get in touch with our local Authority to seek confirmation that there is no issue.

It sounds as though you may have a conveyancing solicitor currently acting for you. What do they say? You must enquire of your lawyer before you do anything. It is very possible that once the local authority has been informed of a potential issue it cannot be insured against (a bit like being diagnosed with a serious illness and then taking out health insurance to cover that same ailment)

Am I better off to go with a Disley conveyancing solicitor who is local to the property I am purchasing? I have an old university friend who can conduct the conveyancing however her office is a couple of hundredmiles drive away.

The primary upside of using a high street Disley conveyancing practice is that you can drop in to execute documents, present your ID and pester them if necessary. Having local Disley know how is a plus. That being said nothing is more important than finding someone that will do a good and efficient job. If if people you trust used your friend and on the whole were content that should outweigh using an unfamiliar Disley conveyancing lawyer just because they are based in the area.

I’m about to sell my 2 bed flat in Disley. Conveyancing is yet to be initiated, but I have recently had a half-yearly service charge invoice – should I leave it to the buyer to sort out?

It best that you pay the invoice as you normally would because all rents and service charges should be apportioned as part of the financial calculations for completion monies, so you will be reimbursed by the purchaser for the period running from after the completion date to the next payment date. Most managing agents 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. Having a clear account will assist your cause and will leave you no worse off financially.

Disley Leasehold Conveyancing - Examples of Queries before Purchasing

Does the lease include onerous restrictions? The prefered form of lease arrangement is if the freehold title is owned by the leaseholders. In this arrangement the tenants benefit from control and notwithstanding that a managing agent is often retained where the building is bigger than a house conversion, the managing agent acts for the leaseholders themselves. Plenty Disley leasehold properties will be liable to pay a service bill for the upkeep of the building invoiced by the landlord. Where you purchase the property you will have to meet this liability, normally quarterly throughout the year. This could differ from several hundred pounds to thousands of pounds for bigger purpose-built blocks. In all probability there will be a rentcharge for you to pay annual, this is usually not a exorbitant figure, say around £25-£75 but you need to check it because on occasion it could be prohibitively expensive.