My husband and I are planning to acquire a home in Shelfield and are in fact using a Shelfield conveyancing practice. Within the last couple of days our conveyancer has sent a preliminary report and documents to look through with the expectation that exchange is imminent. Chelsea Building Society have this afternoon contacted us to advise us that there is now an issue as our Shelfield conveyancer is not on their approved list of lawyers. Please explain?

If you are buying a property needing a mortgage it is normal for the purchasers' solicitors to also act for 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 solicitor 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 solicitors to act. You don't have to instruct a firm on the lender’s conveyancing panel and you may continue to use your own Shelfield solicitors, in which case your legal fees may increase, and it will likely delay the transaction as you are adding another lawyer into the mix.

Is there a reason why leasehold purchase conveyancing in Shelfield costs more?

In short, leasehold conveyancing in Shelfield and Birmingham usually involve more due diligence compared to freehold conveyancing. This includes reviewing the lease, communicating with the landlord about serving appropriate notices, securing up-to-date service charge and management information, securing the landlord’s consents and reviewing management accounts. The obligations on both the landlord and the tenant in the lease need to be studied by the buyer’s conveyancing team and read from beginning to end – no matter how many different proprietor have owned the lease since it was first granted.

I have todaydiscovered that Wolstenholmes have been shut down. They conducted my conveyancing in Shelfield for a purchase of a leasehold apartment 9 months ago. How can I check that the property is registered correctly in the name of the previous owner?

The quickest method to check if the premises is in your name, you can make a search of the land registry (£3.00). You can either do this yourself or ask a law firm to do this for you. If you are not registered you can seek help from one of a number of Shelfield conveyancing specialists.

I am a negotiator for a long established estate agency in Shelfield where we see a few flat sales derailed as a result of short leases. I have received contradictory information from local Shelfield conveyancing solicitors. Can you clarify whether the seller of a flat can initiate the lease extension formalities for the buyer?

Provided that the seller has been the owner for at least 2 years it is possible, to serve a Section 42 notice to commence 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 sit tight for 2 years for a lease extension. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment has to be done prior to, or simultaneously with completion of the sale.

Alternatively, it may be possible 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.

Shelfield Conveyancing for Leasehold Flats - A selection of Queries before buying

Best to be warned if fixing the lift or some other significant cost is pending that will be shared by the leaseholders and may well materially impact the level of the maintenance charges or require a specific payment. Does the lease have onerous restrictions? Are any of leasehold owners in dispute over their service charge liability?

A conveyancing firm acted on my conveyancing in Shelfield half a dozen years past having stored my deeds but has now closed – What steps do I now take to get hold of them?

Deeds, as such, no longer exist as most properties in Shelfield are archived digitally at Land Registry. Where you need to show ownership or are selling or refinancing your property lawyer can 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 as quickly as possible.