Much of the centre of Lichfield is a conservation area, and the buyer of a Georgian house on Beacon Street or St John Street is also buying listed building consent, a cellar that may run under the pavement, a flying freehold over the neighbour's passage and a right of way that nobody has written down since the eighteenth century. Property solicitors in Lichfield are used to these, and used to explaining to buyers from Birmingham why the searches on an old house take longer and reveal more than they expected.
The rest of the city's housing is more conventional and moves quickly. Boley Park and Darwin Park attract families moving out from Sutton Coldfield; the new estates at Streethay and on the southern edge of the city bring new-build conveyancing with its reservation fees, estate rentcharges and management companies; Burntwood and the villages add bungalows, barn conversions and the occasional smallholding with an agricultural occupancy condition. HS2 runs through the district, and land near the line may carry compensation claims, blight notices or restrictions a buyer should know about before exchange.
Landlord and tenant work is modest but steady, mostly professional tenants on assured shorthold tenancies. Commercial property means shop and restaurant leases in the centre, units at Fradley Park and farm sales and tenancies in the villages, together with planning work on the many applications that a growing city inside the green belt generates. Neighbour disputes over boundaries and extensions are common in a city of large gardens.
Conveyancing is charged at fixed fees; ask for a quote that separates the solicitor's fee from searches, Land Registry fees and stamp duty, and expect listed-building and new-build work to cost more.
Property solicitors working in and around Lichfield appear below, verified ones first. Sellers should read the legal fees for selling a house and buyers what conveyancing involves; what property law covers and neighbour disputes deal with the wider subject, and the general property solicitors guide with the service itself.
