A first-time buyer at Stratford or Royal Wharf is almost always buying a leasehold flat in a block built within the last fifteen years, often through shared ownership, and the questions a property solicitor in Newham has to answer are not the ones in the guidebooks: what the service charge will be in year five, whether the building holds the fire-safety certificates a lender insists on, what the estate charge for the landscaped squares actually pays for, and how staircasing to full ownership works.
Across the older borough the work is different. The Victorian terraces of East Ham, Forest Gate, Manor Park and Plaistow have been extended, converted and subdivided for a century, so conveyancing means checking that the loft, the side return and the outbuilding have planning permission and building regulations approval, and whether a house is being sold with sitting tenants in it. Many are bought as investments, and that is where Newham's licensing regime bites. Every private landlord in the borough must hold a licence, the conditions are enforced, and a tenant of an unlicensed property can apply for a rent repayment order to recover up to a year's rent. Local solicitors act for landlords caught out by the scheme and for tenants using it, as well as in the deposit, disrepair and possession claims that fill the county court lists.
Commercial property ranges from shop leases on Green Street and High Street North, where lease renewals under the 1954 Act decide a family business's future, to warehouse and hotel sites at Beckton and around ExCeL and the units of the Royal Docks enterprise zone. Conveyancing fees are usually fixed, with searches quoted separately.
Property firms serving Newham appear below, verified firms first. For background read how conveyancing works, landlord and tenant law, what a tenancy agreement costs and the legal fees for buying a house, or the general property solicitors page.
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