We are planning to acquire a flat and need a conveyancing solicitor in Brockley who is on the Coventry BS conveyancing panel. Can you recommend a local conveyancing firm?

Our service is limited to being a directory service for firms who wish to be listed as being on the approved conveyancing panel for Coventry BS . We don't recommend any particular firms conducting conveyancing in Brockley.

We are purchasing a flat in Brockley. It might be a silly question but how we can trust a lawyer? At some point we will need to send money into their account. What is the protection we have from them run away with our money?

Be assured that all money in a Solicitors client account is 100% safe, and even if your Solicitor ran off with it, the Law Society would reimburse you fully.

After months of negotiation I have agreed a price on an apartment in Brockley. My mortgage broker recommended their conveyancers. I paid an on account payment of £200. Shortly after, the conveyancing practitioner contacted me embarrassingly acknowledging that they were not on the Coventry BS conveyancing panel. Am I right in thinking that I should be due a refund?

You should be able to recover this from the law firm if they were not on the Coventry BS panel. They should have asked at the outset which lender you were obtaining a mortgage with. An important lesson to readers of this site is to check that the lawyers are on the appropriate lender panel.

Planning on purchasing a maisonette in Brockley. I have received an online quote from a licenced conveyancer, which states: "There will be no charge for dealing with the Lender if you are obtaining a mortgage". I take this to mean that there will be no additional fee if the solicitor is on the HSBC conveyancing panel. I wanted to make sure it means there will be no additional fees for dealing with the mortgage.

They are simply saying that the cost for acting for the lender is included in the fee being quoted. It is worth you checking that the Brockley lawyer is on the HSBC conveyancing panel.

I purchased my flat on 13 June and the transaction details are still not on the land registry website. Any reason for this? My conveyancing solicitor in Brockley said it would be dealt with in a couple of weeks. Are titles in Brockley particularly slow to register?

There is nothing unique about conveyancing in Brockley registration formalities. Rather than based on location, timescales can vary subject to the party submitting the application, whether it is in order and whether the Land registry need to notify any interested persons or bodies. At present roughly three quarters of submission are fully addressed within two weeks but some can be subject to protracted hold-ups. Historically registration takes place once the buyer has moved in to the property thus registration formalities is not always an essential issue but if there is a degree of urgency associated with the registration then you or your conveyancer can communicate with the Registry to express the reasoning for the application to be prioritised.

Do you have any top tips for leasehold conveyancing in Brockley from the perspective of speeding up the sale process?

• A significant proportion of the frustration in leasehold conveyancing in Brockley can be bypassed where you instruct lawyers the minute your agents start marketing the property and ask them to collate the leasehold documentation needed by the purchasers’ lawyers.
Some Brockley leases require Licence to Assign from the landlord. If this is the case, you should notify your estate agents to make sure that the purchasers put in hand bank and professional references. Any bank reference should make it clear that the buyer is able to meet the annual service charge and the actual amount of the service charge should be quoted in the bank’s letter. You will therefore need to provide your estate agents with the service charge figures so that they can pass this information on to the buyers or their lawyers. If you have the benefit of shareholding in the freehold, you should make sure that you have the original share document. Obtaining a replacement share certificate can be a lengthy formality and slows down many a Brockley conveyancing deal. Where a new share is needed, do contact the company director and secretary or managing agents (where relevant) for this at the earliest opportunity. If you have carried out any alterations to the premises would they have required Landlord’s consent? In particular have you installed wooden flooring? Most leases in Brockley state that internal structural alterations or addition of wooden flooring require a licence issued by the Landlord consenting to such works. Where you dont have the consents to hand you should not communicate with the landlord without contacting your solicitor before hand.

I inherited a a ground floor purpose built flat in Brockley. Given that I can not reach agreement with the landlord, can the Leasehold valuation Tribunal determine the sum due for a lease extension?

in cases where there is a missing freeholder or where there is disagreement about the premium for a lease extension, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can apply to the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal to decide the price.

An example of a Lease Extension matter before the tribunal for a Brockley property is Flat b 14 Kemble Road in May 2014. The Tribunal assessed the value of the premium payable for the lease extension to be £9,761 This case was in relation to 1 flat.

I am due to review estimates for conveyancing in Brockley from three conveyancer and decide on one. Should I get them to hold tight until I have found somewhere to purchase.

You should wait to get your solicitor to commence work and order searches once the sales memo has been issued by the estate agent particularly as Brockley conveyancing searches are not cheap.