My husband and I are refinancing our apartment in Barmouth with Principality. We have a son 19 who lives with us. Our solicitor has asked us to disclose any adults other than ourselves who lives in the flat. The solicitor has now sent a form for our son to sign, giving up any rights in the event that the apartment is repossessed. I have two concerns (1) Is this form unique to the Principality conveyancing panel as he never had to sign this form when we purchased 4 years ago (2) Does our son by signing this extinguish 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 Principality. This is solely used to protect Principality 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 Principality 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.

My fiance and I are buying a newbuild apartment in Barmouth with a residential mortgage from Santander.We would like to retain our Barmouth conveyancing solicitor but Santander advised that she’s not on their "panel". It seems we have little choice but to instruct a Santander panel firm or keep our high street solicitor and fork out for a Santander panel lawyer to act for them. We feel as though this is unjust; Can we not simply insist that Santander use our lawyer?

No, not really. The mortgage issued to you contains various provisions, one of which will be that lawyers needs to be on the Santander conveyancing panel. in the past, most mortgage companies had large numbers of law firms on their panels: a borrower could choose one for themselves, as long as it was on the lender's panel. The lender would then simply instruct the borrower's lawyers to act for the lender, too. You can use your lender's panel lawyers or you could borrow from another lender which does not restrict your choice. Another option that might be available is for your lawyer to apply to be on the conveyancing panel for Santander

My relative recommended that if I am purchasing in Barmouth 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 occasionally quoted for as part of the standard Barmouth conveyancing searches. It is a large report of about 40 pages, listing and setting out significant information about Barmouth 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 demographics of People living in the area, the dominant type of Housing, the Average House Prices, Crime statistics, Barmouth Education with plans and statistics, Local Amenities and other useful data concerning Barmouth.

About to purchase a new build flat in Barmouth. Conveyancing is necessary evil 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 is a sample of a few leasehold new build questions that you should expect your new-build leasehold conveyancing in Barmouth

Will control of the Management Company (if any) be handed over to purchasers on completion of the last sale or earlier? Please supply a car parking plan. Please supply evidence that the form of Lease proposed has been approved by the Land Registry. Where there is an Undertaking being granted there is the risk of forfeiture of the Headlease subject to relief if one or more of the Underlessees are willing to accept the original Head Lessee’s obligations as otherwise relief will be denied to the Underlessees. The only alternatives are the Head Lessor agreeing not to forfeit the Headlease or the Head Lessee guaranteeing to the Underlessees that it will not be in breach of the Headlease. Where service of notices and proceedings can be at the property demised please confirm that this can be amended to include simultaneous services at the Lessees’ solicitors’ offices where the Lessee from time to time is not resident in the UK - such solicitors may be varied by notice in writing to the Landlord from time to time but otherwise will be as previously specified.

We are a couple of weeks into a leasehold purchase having been recommend to solicitors by the selling agent to carry out the conveyancing in Barmouth. We are not happy. Could you you assist me in finding new conveyancers?

They would need to be very bad in order to consider changing them. Has your mortgage been issued? If so you need to make them aware of the replacement lawyer and get the offer are issued to the new lawyers. Your new conveyancer should be on the mortgage company approved list to avoid added costs and delays. That should be your starting point. Our find a solicitor tool will assist you in finding a lender approved lawyer for your home move in Barmouth