My husband and I are refinancing our apartment in West London with Skipton. We have a son approaching twenty who lives at home. Our solicitor has asked us to disclose anyone over the age of 17 other than ourselves who lives in the flat. The solicitor has now sent a form for our son to sign, waiving any legal rights in the event that the property is forfeited by the lender. I have two questions (1) Is this document specific to the Skipton conveyancing panel as he did not need to sign this form when we purchased 4 years ago (2) In signing this form is our son in any way compromising his right to inherit the property?

First, rest assured that your Skipton conveyancing panel solicitor is doing the right thing as it is established procedure for any occupier who is aged 17 or over to sign the necessary Consent Form, which is purely to state that any rights he has in the property are postponed and secondary to Skipton. This is solely used to protect Skipton if the property were re-possessed so that in such circumstances, your son would be legally obliged to leave. It does not impact your son’s right to inherit the apartment. Please note that if your son were to inherit and the mortgage in favour of Skipton had not been discharged, he would be liable to take over the loan or pay it off, but other than that, there is nothing stopping him from keeping the property in accordance with your will or the rules of intestacy.

I have been told that property searches are the primary cause of delay in West London conveyancing transactions. Is there any truth in this?

The Council of Property Search Organisations (CoPSO) published determinations of a review by MoveWithUs that conveyancing searches do not figure amongst the most frequent causes of hindrances in the conveyancing process. Local searches are unlikely to be the root cause of delay in conveyancing in West London.

I have been on the look out for a ground for flat up to £195,000 and identified one round the corner in West London I like with a park and station in the vicinity, however it only has 49 remaining years left on the lease. There is not much else in West London suitable, so just wondered if I would be making a grave error purchasing a short lease?

Should you require a mortgage the remaining unexpired lease term may be problematic. Reduce the price by the anticipated lease extension will cost if not already taken into account. If the current owner has owned the property for at least 2 years you may request that they start the process of the extension and pass it to you. An additional ninety years can be extended on to the current lease with a zero ground rent applied. You should speak to your conveyancing lawyer regarding this matter.

I've recently bought a leasehold property in West London. Am I liable to pay service charges relating to a period prior to completion of my purchase?

Where the service charge has already been demanded from the previous lessee and they have not paid you would not usually be personally liable for the arrears. However, your landlord may still be able to take action to forfeit the lease. A critical element of leasehold conveyancing for your conveyancer to ensure to have an up to date clear service charge receipt before completion of your purchase. If you have a mortgage this is likely to be a requirement of your lender.

If you purchase part way through an accounting year you may be liable for charges not yet demanded even if they relate to a period prior to your purchase. In such circumstances your conveyancer would normally arrange for the seller to set aside some money to cover their part of the period (usually called a service charge retention).

I have given up trying to purchase the freehold in West London. Can the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal adjudicate on premiums?

if there is a missing freeholder or where there is disagreement about the premium for a lease extension, under the relevant statutes you can apply to the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal to assess the sum to be paid.

An example of a Lease Extension matter before the tribunal for a West London premises is 137 & 139 Haberdasher Street in December 2013. The Tribunal determines in accordance with section 48 and Schedule 13 of the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 that the premium for the extended lease for each Property should be £12,350.00. This case was in relation to 2 flats. The number of years remaining on the existing lease(s) was 72.39 years.

Are there any apps to help search for a West London conveyancing solicitor on the mortgage company conveyancing panel? I have a car and am prepared to travel up to 15kilometers to attend the conveyancer.

You can use the find a conveyancing panel tool on this website. Please choose the lender and your location, in this case West London and you will see a number of lawyer located nearest West London. Alternatively you can type in the name of your proposed law firm and see if they are listed as being on the mortgage company solicitor panel.