I am buying a property mortgage free in Wokingham. I have been residing for the last twelve years in Wokingham. Conveyancing searches are expensive. As I know the road and vicinity very well must I have all the conveyancing searches?

If you not getting a home loan, then almost all of the Wokingham conveyancing searches are at your discretion. Your solicitor will 'advise', no-doubt strongly, that you should have searches done, but she is duty bound to do this. Do bear in mind; if you are likely to sell the house in the future, it will be of relevance to your prospective purchaser what the searches disclose. Sometimes houses with no practical issues can still show up unpredicted search results. A competent conveyancing solicitor in Wokingham will provide you some practical guidance here.

Finally the sale completed on my house in Wokingham last December yet the purchaser is texting daily to say their solicitor is waiting to hear from myconveyancer. What should have happened now that I have sold?

After completion of your house sale your conveyancer should forward the transfer documentation and all supplemental paperwork to the buyer’s conveyancer. If applicable, your conveyancer must also evidence that the mortgage has been paid off to the purchasers conveyancers. There is unlikely to be post completion tasks just for conveyancing in Wokingham.

We had selected solicitors locally in Wokingham on the Santander solicitor approved list. They have just invoiced me a separate charge for handling the Santander mortgage. Is this an additional conveyancing fee specified by Santander?

Unfortunately, so long as it is in their Terms of Engagement or Quote then yes your conveyancing practitioner can levy a fee for this. This fee is not set by Santander but by your Wokingham conveyancing practitioner. Plenty of firms on the Santander panel will charge ’dealing with mortgage’ fee and others do not.

After much negotiation I have agreed a price on an apartment in Wokingham. My financial adviser suggested a conveyancing practitioner. I paid an on account payment of £200. A couple of days later, the solicitor called me embarrassingly acknowledging that they were not on the Santander conveyancing panel. Am I right in thinking that I should be due a refund?

You should be able to recover this from the law firm if they were not on the Santander panel. They should have asked at the outset which lender you were obtaining a mortgage with. An important lesson to readers of this site is to check that the lawyers are on the appropriate lender panel.

I have finally had an offer on an apartment in Wokingham agreed to, the owners do however have a tied purchase. The sellers have placed an offer on a flat, however it’s not yet agreed to, and are looking at other properties booked. I have chosen a bricks and mortar conveyancing solicitor in Wokingham. What should be my next step? When do I get the mortgage application with Barclays going?

It is understandable to have apprehensions where there is a chain as you are unlikely to want to be too out of pocket prematurely (home loan application is in the region of one thousand pounds, then survey, Wokingham conveyancing search charges, etc). The first thing to do is ensure that your lawyer is on the Barclays conveyancing panel. As to the next stages this very much depends on the circumstances of your transaction, attraction to the property and on the state of the market. During a buoyant market the majority of buyers will apply for a home loan with Barclays and pay for the valuation and only if it was satisfactory would they ask their lawyer to proceed with the conveyancing in Wokingham.

I have been on the look out for a ground for flat up to £235,500 and identified one near me in Wokingham I like with a park and station nearby, the downside is that it's only got 52 years unexpired on the lease. There is not much else in Wokingham for this price, so just wondered if I would be making a grave error buying a short lease?

Should you need a home loan the shortness of the lease may be a potential deal breaker. Reduce the offer by the expected lease extension will cost if it has not already been discounted. If the existing owner has owned the premises for a minimum of twenty four months you could 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 current lease and have £0 ground rent by law. You should speak to your conveyancing solicitor about this matter.

Should local authority permission be needed to change a single dwelling into a couple of appartments in Wokingham? This has been done to a house opposite to a friend in Wokingham and was not aware of the conversion until it was finished.

Planning permission is needed for splitting a single house in Wokingham into flats but probably not for reverting back to single dwelling-house so, in answer to your question, yes.