My husband and I are looking to buy a flat in Eccles and have appointed a Eccles conveyancing firm. Within the past 48 hours our lawyer has sent a preliminary report and documents to look through with a view to exchanging next week. have this morning contacted us to advise us that they have now hit a problem as our Eccles conveyancer is not on their conveyancing panel. Is this a problem?

Where you are buying a property needing a mortgage it is conventional for the purchasers' solicitors to also act for the mortgage company. In order to act for a bank or building society a law firm has to be on that lender's conveyancing panel. An application has to be made by the law firm to the lender to become a member of the lender's panel and there are increasingly strict criteria which the firm has to satisfy and indeed some lenders now require their panel members to be part of the Law Society’s Conveyancing Quality Scheme. Your solicitor should contact your mortgage company and see if they can apply for membership of their conveyancing panel, but if that is not viable they will instruct their own solicitors to act. You are not legally obliged to appoint a law firm on the lender’s conveyancing panel as you are at liberty to use your preferred Eccles lawyers, in which case your legal fees may increase, and it may delay matters as you have another set of people involved.

I am buying a property mortgage free in Eccles. I have lived for the last Seventeen years in Eccles. Conveyancing searches are exorbitant. Given that I know the area and road intimately should I not bother getting the solicitor to do all the conveyancing searches?

In the absence of a home loan, then all but one or two of the Eccles conveyancing searches are optional. Your conveyancer will try and sway you, perhaps strongly, that you should have searches carried out, but he has a professional duty to take that path of guidance. Do consider; if you are intend to dispose of the house in the future, it will be of interest to your prospective purchaser what the searches contain. On occasion houses with functional issues can still reveal unpredicted search results. A good conveyancing solicitor in Eccles will be able to give you some helpful advice in this regard.

I got the keys to my home on 1 February and my personal details is yet to be registered. Need I be worried? My conveyancing solicitor in Eccles advises it would be registered in less than a month. Are properties in Eccles particularly slow to register?

There is nothing unique about conveyancing in Eccles registration formalities. As opposed to being determined by geographic area, timeframes can adjust according to the party submitting the application, whether it is in order and whether the Land registry must send notices to any interested persons or bodies. Currently approximately 80% of submission are fully addressed within two weeks but occasionally there can be longer delays. Registration is effected once the purchaser is living at the premises so an expedited registration is not always primary concern but where it is urgent that the the registration takes place urgently then you or your solicitor could communicate with the Registry to express the reasoning for the application to be prioritised.

Yesterday I discovered that there is a flying freehold element on a house I put an offer in a fortnight ago in what should have been a quick, no chain conveyancing. Eccles is where the house is located. Can you shed any light on this issue?

Flying freeholds in Eccles are rare but are more likely to exist in relation to terraced houses. Even though you don't necessarily need a conveyancing solicitor in Eccles you must be sure that your lawyer goes through the deeds thoroughly. Your bank may require your conveyancing solicitor to take out an indemnity policy. Some of the more diligent conveyancing solicitors in Eccles may ascertain that this is not enough and that the deeds be re-written to give you the most up to date legal protection. If so, the next door neighbour also had to sign up to the revised deeds.It is possible that your lender will not accept the situation so the sooner you find out the better. You should also check with your insurance broker as to whether they will insure a flying freehold property.

My conveyancers in Eccles have advised me that they can not locate my conveyancing file. To assist with my purchase I took out a mortgage with the bank. Is it case that being on the mortgage company conveyancing panel they need to have retained the file for a prescribed period?

It very much depends from lender to lender but many of the Terms and Conditions of Conveyancing Panel Appointment require the file to be held for a period of 6 years. That being said we have not seen a copy of the mortgage company Conveyancing Panel Terms. It might be worth you contacting the lender directly.