The Conveyancer

Actually I get things through as quick as possible, especially when work is a little slow. A cash purchase can be done in a week with both solicitors playing the game. You just need to stress the urgency and be prepared to pay a bit more if you need an expidited service, like most things. Realistically, a normal house purchase with a mortgage could complete in a month without too much effort, as long as all requested for information from the solicitors is dealt with promptly. Obviously this is for a house with no issues, if you are talking water mains through gardens, dodgy conversions and unregistered land things drastically change.

hope the above helps, if you can read my answers - note to self, dont play with the coloured font

Something here isnt right. All of my clients who sell properties with septic tanks or cesspits find it much cheaper than being on mains drainage. I think you have got your timetable of emptying wrong. As for water going to a soakaway, if you are just talking about surface water this is fine. Many, many houses have soakaways for surface water and have no problems at all. You also get about £20.00 a year off your drainage bill (obviously this property wont have one at all as it is connected to a septic tank/cesspit). Really dont think your problem is as bad as you are saying. Your solicitor would have spotted the drainage issue straightaway. What is their advice on the situation?

The direction you need to be looking in is that of the brokers. There may have been some smaller amounts of fraud with solicitors and surveyors but a large percentage of brokers were at it. I could see the liar loans coming in but there was nothing I could do. I cant give financial advice, we arent regulated by the FSA. Any idiot could tell that a hairdresser with six kids doesnt really earn enough to get a £200k interest only mortgage but it is not my job to investigate this. I guess I could have reported my suspicions to the bank but that would probably break client confidentiality and anyway the banks were fine with it.

The solicitors probably did tell them they didnt have a case. We dont like to lose cases, it makes us look rubbish and only upsets the client in the long run. My firm always tell clients if they dont have a case, especially rich clients. I would say they were probably too stubborn to accept the advice offered. If clients insist on going forward of course the litigators will take their money, but on the whole they would rather accept cases they had a chance of winning.

The market certainly is recovering and I am rushed off my feet (thank God, my job is safe for the moment). I am getting a handful of new instructions every week whereas I was down to a couple a month. How long it will actually last is another thing and Im not seeing prices rise at all. I know professionals in the area who still cant afford to buy. Only people with a decent deposit can get a mortgage and there can be many left of them around. New jobs are hard to come by in the area and the local shopping centres are looking pathetic. No one I know has received a pay rise this year but the cost of every day living is through the roof. There is a lot of movement in the market but a lot of good deals to be had. I have clients who would actually accept 25% off their asking price, you just need to make the right offer on the right house. If you are serious about buying make friends with the decent agents (stay clear of anyone who recommends solicitors based in Cardiff). Oh and if you do choose to buy I know a good conveyancer!

It is so that you have a block of owner occupiers. It stops a building filling up with buy to let investors sub-letting. Us renters are scum.

If there is a management company appointed they can just get on with the work that is needed and charge the leaseholders. With freehold flats you need to get the other owners in a block to agree to work and then try to get their share out of them. If they say they dont want the work done it is hard to make them and usually involves expensive Court action. Therefore you could be living on the top floor with the roof leaking on you all night but your fellow owners lower down in the block refuse to chip in to have the roof repaired. Not many lenders will go for freehold flats. Why dont buy a flat - The service charges are expensive and quite often when you work it out you would be cheaper with a bigger mortgage and no service charge and ground rent. You have to ask the landlord for consent to change anything, you are too close to your neighbours, there can be all sort of rules and regulations about what you can and cant do in your own home, you can be hit with excess service charge accounts for major works you werent expecting. Basically you lose a load of control and end up having to pay extra cash for people to run the block. If you can buy a freehold property (but not a flat)

Dont buy a flat. If you really must the share of freehold is preferable as you have a say in who is running the building, what works are done and who by. The leasehold option is the usual way with a management company running the service charge and normally the charges are higher with (allegedly) sometimes a "cut" being taken by the management company of any major works that are carried out. Freehold flats are almost unmortgagable and should not be touched with a barge pole.

As far as I am aware, they can ask, encourage or request that you use their appointed solicitors but they cannot insist (you may want to check with the Law Society). If they will not proceed without you taking independant advice dont invest with them, it is that simple.

Normally they will shout, scream and threaten but back down in the end. They want your sale for this years figures but very rarely will pull out totally. It happened before in a rising market but not now in a falling one.

Yep, most of us "legal folk" would behave decently in transactions, I would never gazzunder or gazzump. However if your client instructs you to do something, you must do it.

What he said, but I wouldnt really bother with the CAB, I would just get myself down to a solicitors pretty damn quick

Why is he over charging you for the HIP then? Also if you are happy with your solicitor why are you considering an online company? To be honest the cheapest way would be to do it yourself, are there any website that help you? It really isnt rocket science putting a HIP together, you could train monkeys to do it. That is why you can get them online! Seriously though, it is better to get your solicitor to do it as he will read through the papers at the same time and may be able to spot any problems with the title sooner rather than later.

Find a better solicitor. We have to read all the documentation anyway so decent local solicitors tend to do the HIP at cost price.