My fiance and I are refinancing our maisonette in Llanishen with Co-operative. We have a son 18 who lives at home. Our solicitor has asked us to disclose anyone over the age of 17 other than ourselves who reside at the property. The solicitor has now sent a form for our son to sign, waiving any legal rights in the event that the property is forfeited by the lender. I have two questions (1) Is this document specific to the Co-operative conveyancing panel as he did not need to sign this form when we remortgaged 4 years ago (2) Does our son by signing this giving up his rights to inherit the property?

On the face of it your lawyer has done nothing wrong as it is established procedure for any occupier who is aged 17 or over to sign the necessary Consent Form, which is purely to state that any rights he has in the property are postponed and secondary to Co-operative. This is solely used to protect Co-operative if the property were re-possessed so that in such circumstances, your son would be legally obliged to leave. It does not impact your son’s right to inherit the apartment. Please note that if your son were to inherit and the mortgage in favour of Co-operative had not been discharged, he would be liable to take over the loan or pay it off, but other than that, there is nothing stopping him from keeping the property in accordance with your will or the rules of intestacy.

A colleague advised me that if I am buying in Llanishen 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 Llanishen conveyancing searches. It is not a small document of more than thirty pages, listing and detailing important information about Llanishen around the property and the people living there. It incorporates an Aerial Photograph, Planning Applications, Land Use, Mobile Phone Masts, Rights of Way, the local Housing Market, Council Tax Banding, the type of People living in the area, the dominant type of Housing, the Average House Prices, Crime statistics, Llanishen Education with maps and statistics, Local Amenities and other useful information concerning Llanishen.

The deeds to our home can not be found. The solicitors who did the conveyancing in Llanishen 5 years ago are no longer around. Will I be able to sell the house?

Nowadays there are copies made of almost everything, and your lawyer will know precisely where to look for all the relevant paperwork so you can purchase or dispose of your property without any difficulty. Where duplicates are not available, your conveyancer may be able to arrange cover in the form of insurance or indemnities protecting you against future claims on the property.

About to purchase a new build apartment in Llanishen. Conveyancing is daunting at the best of times but I have never purchased a new build flat before. Can you give me some examples of some of the questions asked in new build legal work.

Set out below are examples of a few leasehold new build enquiries that you may expect your new-build leasehold conveyancing in Llanishen

Please supply evidence that the form of Lease proposed has been approved by the Land Registry. The Lease must contain a provision on behalf of the Vendor to pay the service charges in respect of unoccupied units in order to ensure that all services can be provided. The Vendor must covenant to keep unsold units in good repair until long leases are granted therefore. There must be mutual enforceability of lessee’s covenants. Investor purchasers must be able to freely grant unsecured tenancies at market rents without requiring any consents.

I decided to have a survey completed on a house in Llanishen ahead of appointing conveyancers. I have been told that there is a flying freehold overhang to the house. The surveyor has said that some mortgage companies may refuse to grant a loan on this type of house.

It varies from the lender to lender. Santander has different requirements for example to Birmingham Midshires. If you call us we can look into this further via the relevant mortgage company. If you lender is happy to lend one our lawyers can help as they are accustomed to dealing with flying freeholds in Llanishen. Conveyancing can be more complicated and therefore you should check with your conveyancing solicitor in Llanishen to see if the conveyancing costs will increase in light of this.