I am looking for a flat up to £305k and identified one near me in Workington I like with a park and transport links nearby, the downside is that it's only got 61 remaining years left on the lease. I can't really find anything else in Workington in this price bracket, so just wondered if I would be making a grave error buying a short lease?

If you need a home loan the remaining unexpired lease term may be a potential deal breaker. Discount the offer by the expected lease extension will cost if it has not already been discounted. If the current owner has owned the premises for a minimum of 2 years you may ask them to start the process of the extension and then assign it to you. An additional ninety years can be extended on to the existing lease with a zero ground rent applied. You should speak to your conveyancing lawyer concerning this matter.

How simple is it to switch conveyancer as I need to appoint a firm on the Barclays conveyancing panel. I instructed a local conveyancing solicitor in Workington round the corner but she is not approved by Barclays

We will our best to assist in finding you a conveyancing solicitor in Workington on the Barclays panel. Please note that the property lawyers that we on the directory do not pay us commission if you instruct them and are registered with the SRA who oversee all conveyancing solicitors in Workington. Using search facility on this website, you can compare and instruct different solicitors and conveyancers both nationally and in Workington.

Is it best to instruct a Workington conveyancing practitioner in close proximity to the house I am buying? I have an old university friend who can execute the legal work but they are based a couple of hundredkilometers away.

The benefit of a high street Workington conveyancing practice is that you can pop in to sign paperwork, present your ID and apply pressure on them where appropriate. They will also have local intelligence which is a bonus. However it's more important to get someone that will pull out all the stops for you. If you know people who used your friend and they were impressed that should surpass using an unfamiliar Workington conveyancing lawyer just because they are local.

I am employed by a long established estate agency in Workington where we have experienced a number of leasehold sales derailed due to leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have received inconsistent advice from local Workington conveyancing solicitors. Please can you clarify whether the owner of a flat can instigate the lease extension process for the purchaser on completion of the sale?

Provided that the seller has been the owner for at least 2 years it is possible, to serve a Section 42 notice to kick-start the lease extension process and assign the benefit of the notice to the purchaser. This means that the proposed purchaser can avoid having to sit tight for 2 years to extend their lease. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment has to be done before, or simultaneously with completion of the sale.

An alternative approach is to extend the lease informally by agreement with the landlord either before or after the sale. If you are informally negotiating there are no rules and so you cannot insist on the landlord agreeing to grant an extension or transferring the benefit of an agreement to the buyer.

I own a 2 bed flat in Workington, conveyancing was carried out half a dozen years ago. Can you give me give me an indication of the likely cost of a lease extension? Similar properties in Workington with over 90 years remaining are worth £185,000. The average or mid-range amount of ground rent is £65 invoiced every year. The lease ceases on 21st October 2085

With just 60 years remaining on your lease we estimate the premium for your lease extension to be between £20,000 and £23,000 as well as plus your own and the landlord's "reasonable" professional fees.

The figure above a general guide to costs for renewing a lease, but we cannot give you a more accurate figure in the absence of detailed due diligence. Do not use this information in a Notice of Claim or as an informal offer. There may be other issues that need to be considered and clearly you should be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. Please do not take any other action based on this information without first seeking the advice of a professional.

My partner and I are buying a garden flat in Workington. At the point of instructing our lawyer, they told us that they were on all mainstream mortgage company panels. The financial adviser contacted us yesterday to advise that they don't seem to be on the Nationwide approved list. Were it to be true, what should we do? Do we simply choose a different property lawyer that is on their panel or do we cover the costs for separate representation, with Nationwide selecting their own preferred conveyancing practitioner.

When purchasing a property with mortgage finance it is conventional for the purchaser’s lawyers to also represent the purchaser's lender. In order to act for a bank or building society a conveyancer has to be on that lender's list of approved lawyers. An application has to be made by the conveyancing practitioner to the lender to become a member of the lender's panel and there are increasingly strict conditions which the property lawyer has to meet. Some building societies now insist their panel firms to be part of the Law Society’s Conveyancing Quality Scheme. Your conveyancer should contact Nationwide to discover 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 are not legally obliged to appoint a law firm on Nationwide's conveyancing panel as you are at liberty to use your preferred Workington lawyers, in which case your legal fees may increase, and it may delay matters as you are adding another solicitor into the mix.