My wife and I are planning to buy a flat in Princes Risborough and have appointed a Princes Risborough conveyancing practice. Within the last couple of days our lawyer has forwarded the sale agreement to be signed with a detailed report with the expectation that exchange is imminent. National Westminster Bank have this afternoon contacted us to inform me that they have now hit a problem as our Princes Risborough conveyancer is not on their conveyancing panel. Please explain?

Where you are buying a property requiring 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 property lawyer 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 lawyers to represent them. You don't have to instruct a firm on the bank's conveyancing panel and you may continue to use your own Princes Risborough solicitors, in which case it will likely add costs, and it may delay matters as you have another set of people involved.

The owners of the house we are looking to purchase have appointed a conveyancing solicitor in Princes Risborough who has suggested a preliminary contract with a deposit 10k. Are such agreements sensible?

There are a couple of main downsides with entering into any lock out contract (sometimes known as a shut-out contract) is that it can distract from progressing with the conveyancing work, so in the absence of it needing minimal or no negotiation then it could transpire to be unhelpful. It is not promoted by Princes Risborough conveyancing practitioners for this reason. A further issue is the extent of the remedies available - a jilted buyer is not likely to be granted injunctive relief to prevent the owner completing the sale to an alternative purchaser, so the only remedy available under the contract will be the recovery of wasted charges and, in rare circumstances, the additional payment of penalties.

I am purchasing a house and the conveyancer has mentioned Chancel Repair to which the house could be liable as it falls into the area of such a church. She has suggested insurance. Is this really required for conveyancing in Princes Risborough

Unless a prior purchase of the house took place post 12 October 2013 you may assume that conveyancing practitioners handling conveyancing in Princes Risborough to continue to recommend a chancel search and or insurance against a claim.

Are there restrictive covenants that are commonly picked up during conveyancing in Princes Risborough?

Covenants that are restrictive in nature can be picked up when reviewing land registry title as part of the process of conveyancing in Princes Risborough. An 1874 stipulation that was seen was ‘The houses to be erected on the estate are each to be of a uniform elevation in accordance with the drawings to be prepared or approved by the vendor’s surveyor…’

I am in need of some leasehold conveyancing in Princes Risborough. Before I set the wheels in motion I require certainty as to the remaining lease term.

If the lease is registered - and 99.9% are in Princes Risborough - then the leasehold title will always include the basic details 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 am the registered owner of a split level flat in Princes Risborough, conveyancing formalities finalised in 2001. Can you work out an approximate cost of a lease extension? Equivalent flats in Princes Risborough with over 90 years remaining are worth £180,000. The average or mid-range amount of ground rent is £65 per annum. The lease runs out on 21st October 2084

You have 59 years remaining on your lease we estimate the premium for your lease extension to span between £20,900 and £24,200 plus plus your own and the landlord's "reasonable" professional fees.

The figure above a general guide to costs for renewing a lease, but we cannot give you a more accurate figure without more comprehensive investigations. You should not use the figures in a Notice of Claim or as an informal offer. There may be other issues that need to be considered and clearly you should be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. Neither should you move forward placing reliance on this information before seeking the advice of a professional.