My fiance and I are planning to purchase a home in Pitstone and are in fact using a Pitstone conveyancing firm. Within the last couple of days our solicitor has sent a preliminary report and documents to look through with the expectation that exchange is imminent. Norwich and Peterborough Building Society have this afternoon contacted us to advise us that they have now hit a problem as our Pitstone conveyancer is not on their approved list of lawyers. Please explain?

When purchasing a property with mortgage finance it is usual for the purchasers' lawyers 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 Quality Scheme. Your solicitor should contact your lender 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 bank's conveyancing panel as you are at liberty to use your preferred Pitstone lawyers, in which case it will likely add costs, and it may delay matters as you have another set of people involved.

At what point will exchange of contracts happen for purchase conveyancing in Pitstone and am I required to be at the conveyancers branch?

Where you are near to one of the conveyancing solicitors in Pitstone you are invited in to sign contracts. That being said, the lender approved solicitors we work with supply countrywide coverage for conveyancing and give just as diligent and professional a job for you when communicating with you by post or email. The executing of the sale agreement is not the important part. A signed contract is necessary for the conveyancer to officially exchange when the time is right, which will usually be very shortly after signing. The exchange process is is usually a five minute process, although where a lengthy "chain" is involved, since the process requires the relevant party's solicitor (not necessarily a conveyancing solicitor in Pitstone)to be in the office available at the end of the phone to exchange contracts.

The Pitstone conveyancing solicitors that just started acting on my house acquisition in Pitstone have without warning shut down. I only went with them because I needed a firm on the Nottingham conveyancing panel and my previous Pitstone lawyer was not. I cut them a cheque for £250 in advance. What should be my next steps?

If you have an estate agent involved then inform them immediately so that they advise the vendors that there may be a slight delay due to reasons beyond your control. Hopefully they will be sympathetic and urge their lawyer to send a new set of papers to your new solicitors. You will need to appoint new lawyers that are on the Nottingham conveyancing panel and notify the lender. If you have paid over any money, it will hopefully be held by the SRA as money in an intervened firm's bank accounts is transferred to the SRA. Then, the SRA or the intervention agent looks at the intervened firm's accounts to work out who the money belongs to. To claim your money you will need to contact the SRA. If the SRA cannot return money you are owed from the firm's bank accounts, or if they can only return part of the money, you can apply to the Compensation Fund for a grant. Your new solicitors should be in a position to help.

I have been told that property searches are the number one reason for obstruction in Pitstone conveyancing transactions. Is there any truth in this?

The Council of Property Search Organisations (CoPSO) released determinations of a review by MoveWithUs that conveyancing searches do not figure within the top 10 causes of delays during the legal transfer of property. Searches are unlikely to be the root cause of delay in conveyancing in Pitstone.

Having checked my lease I have discovered that there are only Sixty One years unexpired on my lease in Pitstone. I am keen to extend my lease but my landlord is missing. What options are available to me?

On the basis that you qualify, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can apply to the County Court for for permission to dispense with the service of the initial notice. This will mean that your lease can be lengthened by the magistrate. However, you will be required to demonstrate that you have made all reasonable attempts to track down the lessor. In some cases an enquiry agent would be useful to carry out a search and prepare an expert document which can be accepted by the court as proof that the landlord is indeed missing. It is advisable to get professional help from a property lawyer in relation to proving the landlord’s disappearance and the application to the County Court covering Pitstone.

Leasehold Conveyancing in Pitstone - A selection of Queries before buying

It would be sensible to enquire if the the lease includes any adverse restrictions in the lease. By way of example plenty of leases prohibit pets being allowed in in a block in Pitstone. If you like the flatin Pitstone but your cat can’t live with you then you will be faced difficult determination. In the main the cost for major works tend not to be included within maintenance charges, although there some managing agents in Pitstone ask leasehold owners to pay into a reserve fund created for the specific intention of establishing a fund for major repairs or maintenance. The prefered form of lease arrangement is if the freehold reversion is owned by the leaseholders. In this situation the leaseholders benefit from control and notwithstanding that a managing agent is usually employed if the building is bigger than a house conversion, the managing agent retained by the leaseholders.