The owners of the house we are hoping to buy have appointed a conveyancing solicitor in Wombourne who has recommended a exclusivity contract with a payment two thousand pounds. Are such arrangements promoted for Wombourne conveyancing transactions?

There are two main drawbacks with signing a lock out agreement (sometimes referred to as an exclusivity agreement) is that it takes away the focus from moving forward with the conveyancing work, so unless it requires limited or no negotiation then it may transpire to be a hindrance. It is not promoted by Wombourne conveyancing practitioners for this reason. A further issue is the extent of the remedies available - an aggrieved buyer should not expect to be granted an injunctive ruling by a court to bar the owner selling to a third party, so the only remedy available under the contract will be the recovery of abortive costs and, in limited scenarios, the extra payment of damages.

My colleague recommended that where I am purchasing in Wombourne I should carry out a Neighbourhood, Planning and Local Amenity Search. Can you explain what the purpose of this search is?

A search of this type is sometimes quoted for as part of the standard Wombourne conveyancing searches. It is not a small report of more than thirty pages, listing and setting out significant information about Wombourne around the property and the people living there. It includes an Aerial Photograph, Planning Applications, Land Use, Mobile Phone Masts, Rights of Way, the Wombourne Housing Market, Council Tax Banding, the demographics of People living in the area, the dominant type of Housing, the Average Property Price, Crime statistics, Wombourne Education with plans and statistics, Local Amenities and other useful data concerning Wombourne.

I have a 4 bedroom Georgian house in Wombourne. Conveyancing lawyer represented me and . I happened to do a free search for it on the Land Registry database and I saw a couple of entries: one for freehold, the second leasehold with the exact same property. I'd like to know for sure, how can I find out??

You need to review the Freehold register you have again and check the Charges Register as there may be mention of a lease. The best way to be sure that you are also the registered owner of the leasehold and freehold title as well is to check (£3). It is not completely unheard of in Wombourne and other locations in the country and poses no real issues for owners other than when they sell they have to account for both freehold and leasehold interests when dealing with lenders. You can also question the situation with your conveyancing solicitor who carried out the work.

Over the last few months I have been searching for a leasehold apartment up to £305k and identified one close by in Wombourne I like with amenity areas and railway links in the vicinity, however it's only got 61 remaining years left on the lease. I can't really find anything else in Wombourne in this price bracket, so just wondered if I would be making a grave error buying a short lease?

Should you need a mortgage the shortness of the lease will be problematic. Discount the offer by the amount the lease extension will cost if not already taken into account. If the current owner has owned the property for a minimum of twenty four months you may ask them to start the process of the extension and pass it to you. An additional ninety years can be extended on to the existing lease term with a zero ground rent applied. You should speak to your conveyancing solicitor about this matter.

I’m about to sell my basement apartment in Wombourne. Conveyancing has not commenced, but I have recently received a quarterly service charge invoice – should I leave it to the buyer to sort out?

The sensible thing to do is pay the maintenance contribution as usual as all ground rent and service invoices will be apportioned on completion, so you should recover the relevant percentage by the purchaser for the period running from after the completion date to the next payment date. Most managing agents will not acknowledge the buyer unless the service charges have been paid and are up to date, so it is important for both buyer and seller for the seller to show that they are up to date. This will smooth the conveyancing process.

Wombourne Conveyancing for Leasehold Flats - A selection of Queries before Purchasing

On the whole the outlay for major works tend not to be included within maintenance charges, albeit that there some managing agents in Wombourne obliged leasehold owners to contribute towards a reserve fund created for the specific purpose of building a fund for larger works. The majority of Wombourne leasehold flats will incur a service charge for the upkeep of the building set on behalf of the management company. If you buy the property you will have to meet this charge, usually in instalments during the year. This may vary from a few hundred pounds to thousands of pounds for bigger purpose-built buildings. In all likelihood there will be a rentcharge to be met annual, ordinarily this is not a large sum, say about £50-£100 but you should to enquire it because sometimes it can be many hundreds of pounds. What is the maintenance charge and ground rent on the apartment?