It is is a decade since I bought my home in Heanor. Conveyancing lawyers have recently been retained on the sale but I am unable to track down the deeds. Will this jeopardise the sale?

Don’t worry too much. Firstly there is a possibility that the deeds will be retained by the lender or they may be in the possession of the solicitor who acted in your purchase. Secondly in most cases the property will be registered at the land registry and you will be able to prove you own the property by your conveyancing solicitors obtaining up to date copy of the land registers. The vast majority of conveyancing in Heanor involves registered property but in the rare situation where your property is not registered it is more of a problem but is resolvable.

We are selling our apartment in Heanor. Will my lawyer have to be on the Co-operative conveyancing panel in order to deal with paying off my mortgage?

Ordinarily, even if your lawyer is not on the Co-operative conveyancing panel they can still act for you on your sale. It might be that the lender will not release the original deeds (if applicable and increasingly irrelevant) until after the mortgage is paid off. You should speak to your lawyer directly before you start the process though to ensure that there is no problem as lenders are changing their panel criteria fairly frequently currently.

I have been told that property searches are the main cause of delay in Heanor house deals. Is that correct?

The Council of Property Search Organisations (CoPSO) published determinations of a review by MoveWithUs that conveyancing searches do not feature within the top 10 causes of hindrances in the conveyancing process. Local searches are unlikely to feature in any slowing down conveyancing in Heanor.

As co-executor for the will of my uncle I am disposing of a house in Monmouth but I am based in Heanor. My conveyancer (approximately 200 kilometers awayrequires that I execute a statutory declaration ahead of the transaction finalising. Could you suggest a conveyancing lawyer in Heanor to attest and place their company stamp on the document?

strictly speaking you are unlikely to be required to have the documents attested by a conveyancing solicitor. Normally or notary public or qualified solicitor will be fine regardless of whether they are based in Heanor

I'm buying a property in Heanor. I can find my conveyancer's company on the Law Society's list, but I can't see my conveyancer's name on the list. Should I be concerned?

Not all staff in the law firm must be listed by the regulator. As long there is someone qualified to 'oversee' the work, the actual day-to-day activity can be undertaken by unqualified staff.