As a FTB what is the most important piece of guidance you can impart regarding purchase conveyancing in Exmouth?

Not many law firms or advisers will tell you this but conveyancing in Exmouth or throughout England and Wales is an adversarial process. In other words, when it comes to conveyancing there is lots of opportunity for confrontation between you and other parties involved in the legal transfer of property. For example, the vendor, property agent and on occasion your bank. Selecting a solicitor for your conveyancing in Exmouth an important selection as your conveyancer is your adviser, and is the ONLY person in the process whose interest is to protect your best interests and to keep you safe.

Every so often a potential adversary may attempt to sway you that it is in your interests to do things their way. For example, the selling agent may claim to be helping by suggesting your conveyancer is wrong. Or your mortgage broker may try to convince you to do something that is contrary to your conveyancers advice. You should always trust your lawyer above all other parties when it comes to the legal transfer of property.

3 months have gone by since my purchase conveyancing in Exmouth completed. I have checked the Land Registry site which shows that I paid £150,000 when infact I paid £215,000. 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 asset 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.

Over the last few months I have been searching for a ground for flat up to £305k and identified one close by in Exmouth I like with amenity areas and transport links in the vicinity, the downside is that it's only got 52 years unexpired on the lease. There is not much else in Exmouth suitable, so just wondered if I would be making a mistake buying a short lease?

If you require a mortgage the shortness of the lease will likely be a potential deal breaker. Reduce the price by the amount the lease extension will cost if not already taken into account. If the current owner has owned the property for at least 2 years you can request that they start the process of the extension and pass it to you. An additional ninety years can be extended on to the existing lease term and have £0 ground rent by law. You should consult your conveyancing solicitor about this matter.

I was pointed in your direction by a number of estate agents in Exmouth to choose a conveyancer using your seach tool. What’s the financial upside for Estate Agents to market your lawyers over alternative conveyancing organisations?

We refuse to make any financial incentive for sending work our way. We found it would be just too difficult a fee as a client could think, ‘How come the agent getting a kickback? Why am I not receiving any benefit too?’ So we decided to step away from that.

A conveyancing company handled my conveyancing in Exmouth half a dozen years past having stored my registration documents but has now closed – What can I do to retreive these?

Deeds, as such, are no longer appropriate for most properties in Exmouth are registered digitally at Land Registry. If you need to establish evidence of proprietorship or are disposing of or refinancing your solicitor will need to 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 with reasonable haste.