Have just purchased a repossessed house at auction in Southend. Conveyancing is needed. What is next?

Now that you have exchanged you must hire the services of a conveyancing practitioner soon as you are facing a pending deadline in which to complete the deal. All auction property should have a bespoke auction pack. This should include evidence of title and search results. Where you are dealing with leasehold premises the legal papers should contain a copy of the lease, management information and a sellers leasehold information form and other conveyancing paperwork specific to leasehold premises. You need to pass this on to your appointed conveyancing solicitor at the earliest opportunity. Do make sure that you have funds in order to complete on the on the contractual date .

Is there a list of panel conveyancers in Southend on the UK Finance Lenders’ Handbook Website?

No. There is no such directory service on the Council of Mortgage Lenders or Building Society Association sites. Very few lenders make their panel listings open the public over the internet. Where you are looking for a Southend on the please make the most of our facility.

I recently had an offer accepted on an apartment in Southend. My financial adviser recommended their conveyancers. I paid an advanced payment of £225. Not long after, the called me to say that they were not on the 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 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 used Stirling Law a few years ago for my conveyancing in Southend. Now, I need my documents however the law firm has closed. 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 Southend of the conveyancing firm of solicitors you previously used, the name of conveyancing solicitor with whom you had dealings, and the date on which you last had dealings with the firm.

I am looking for a leasehold apartment up to £305k and identified one round the corner in Southend I like with open areas and transport links nearby, however it's only got 61 years on the lease. There is not much else in Southend for this price, so just wondered if I would be making a mistake buying a lease with such few years left?

Should you need a home loan the shortness of the lease will likely be problematic. Discount the price by the amount the lease extension will cost if it has not already been discounted. If the existing owner has owned the premises for at least 2 years you may 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 with a zero ground rent applied. You should consult your conveyancing solicitor regarding this matter.

In scouring the internet for the term conveyancing in Southend it brings up many property lawyersin the area. How do I determine which is the right property lawyer for purchase transaction?

The ideal way of finding a suitable conveyancer is through a personal recommendation, so seek the counsel of colleagues and those you trust who have bought a property in Southend or the reputable estate agent or mortgage broker. Costs for conveyancing in Southend vary, so it's advisable to secure a minimum of three estimates from varying types of law firms. Be sure to obtain confirmation that the costs are guaranteed not to rise.

A licensed conveyancer handled my conveyancing in Southend three years past having retained my title documents but has now closed – What can I do to retreive them?

Title deeds, as such, no longer exist as most homes in Southend are recorded digitally at Land Registry. Should you need to establish evidence of proprietorship or are selling or re-mortgaging your will need to obtain up to date copies of the register from the Land Registry in any case.

If you feel there may be other documents or you have any other queries please e-mail your request with details of the transaction and documents you need to filerequest@clc-uk.org. The CLC will let you know what information they have and any additional information they may need before they are in a position to identify and send the documents to you. Following an intervention it may take some time for the CLC to access archived files and documents, but your request will be actioned with reasonable haste.