I have just been advised by my mortgage adviser that my Brentwood the law firm I have appointed is not on the mortgage company Solicitor panel. How can I be sure if this is correct?

Your first step should be to call your Brentwood conveyancer. It is reasonable to expect your lawyer to advise you what has happened. If they are not on the panel they could put your in touch with solicitors on the approved list of lawyers for your bank.

Would the conveyancing practitioners to be found on your site execute auction conveyancing in Brentwood?

We know of a number of niche lawyers we can connect you with those conducting auction conveyancing. Brentwood is one of our locations in which our lawyers have a presence.

I used Stirling Law several years ago for my conveyancing in Brentwood. Now, I need the files but cannot find the solicitor. What do I do?

You should call the Solicitors Regulatory Authority (SRA) to help locate your conveyancing files. They can be contacted on please contact on 0870 606 2555. Alternatively, you should use their online form to make an enquiry. You will need to provide the SRA with as much information as possible to assist their search, including the name and address in Brentwood of the conveyancing firm of solicitors you previously hired, the name of conveyancing solicitor with whom you had dealings, and the date on which you last had dealings with the firm.

Over the last few months I have been searching for a ground for flat up to £195,000 and found one near me in Brentwood I like with a park and transport links nearby, however it's only got 51 years unexpired on the lease. There is not much else in Brentwood for this price, so just wondered if I would be making a mistake acquiring a lease with such few years left?

Should you require a home loan the shortness of the lease will likely be a potential deal breaker. Reduce the offer by the expected lease extension will cost if not already taken into account. If the current owner has owned the premises for at least twenty four months you can ask them to commence the lease extension formalities and pass it to you. An additional ninety years can be extended on to the existing lease term and have £0 ground rent by law. You should consult your conveyancing solicitor about this.

I am looking at a two flats in Brentwood which have approximately fifty years left on the leases. Do I need to be concerned?

There are no two ways about it. A leasehold flat in Brentwood is a deteriorating asset as a result of the reducing lease term. The nearer the lease gets to its expiry date, the more it adversely affects the marketability of the property. The majority of buyers and lenders, leases with under eighty years become less and less marketable. On a more upbeat note, leaseholders can extend their leases by serving a Section 42 Notice. One stipulation is that they must have owned the premises for two years (unlike a Section 13 notice for purchasing the freehold, when leaseholders can participate from day one of ownership). When successful, they will have the right to an extension of 90 years to the current term and ground rent is effectively reduced to zero. Before moving forward with a purchase of a residence with a short lease term remaining you should talk to a solicitor specialising in lease extensions and leasehold enfranchisement. We are are happy to put you in touch with Brentwood conveyancing experts who will explain the options available to you during an initial telephone conversation free of charge. A more straightforward and quicker method of extending would be to contact your landlord directly and sound him out on the prospect of extending the lease. They may agree to a smaller lump sum and an increase in the ground rent, but to shorter extension terms in return. You need to ensure that the agreed terms represent good long-term value compared with the standard benefits of the Section 42 Notice and that onerous clauses are not inserted into any redrafting of the lease.

After years of correspondence we are unable to agree with our landlord on how much the lease extension should cost for our flat in Brentwood. Can we issue an application to the Residential Property Tribunal Service?

if there is a missing freeholder or if there is dispute about what the lease extension should cost, under the relevant legislation you can apply to the LVT to determine the sum to be paid.

An example of a Lease Extension case for a Brentwood property is 37 Lodge Court High Street in November 2013. the decision of the LVT was that the premium to be paid for the new lease was £25,559 This case affected 1 flat. The unexpired term was 57.5 years.