My husband and I are planning to buy a property in Exton and have appointed a Exton conveyancing practice. Within the past 48 hours our solicitor has sent a preliminary report and documents to look through in anticipation of exchanging contracts shortly. Barclays have this afternoon contacted us to inform me that they have now hit a problem as our Exton solicitor is not on their approved list of lawyers. What do we do from here?

When purchasing a property with mortgage finance it is usual for the purchasers' lawyers to also represent 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 property lawyer 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 bank's conveyancing panel and you may continue to use your own Exton solicitors, in which case your legal fees may increase, and it will likely delay the transaction as you have another set of people involved.

A colleague suggested that if I am buying in Exton I should ask my conveyancer to execute a Neighbourhood, Planning and Local Amenity Search. Can you explain what the purpose of this search is?

A search of this type is occasionally included in the estimate for your Exton conveyancing searches. It is a large document of about 40 pages, listing and setting out significant information about Exton 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 type of People living in the area, the dominant type of Housing, the Average House Prices, Crime details, Exton Education with maps and statistics, Local Amenities and other useful data about Exton.

I'm purchasing my first flat in Exton benefiting from help to buy. The builders refused to reduce the price so I negotiated £7000 of extras instead. The estate agent suggested that I not reveal to my lawyer about this side-deal as it may jeopardize my loan with the lender. Should I keep quiet?.

All lenders require a Disclosure of Incentives Form from the builder of any new build, converted or renovated property, It is available online from the Lenders’ Handbook page on the CML website. CML form is completed and handed to the lender's surveyor when the inspection is done.

Lenders have different policies on incentives. Some accept none at all, cash or physical, while others will accept cash incentives up to 5%.

Hard to understand why the representative of a builder would be suggesting you withold information from a solicitor when all this will be clearly visible on forms the builder has to supply to its solicitor, the buyer's solicitor and the surveyor.

I am 3 weeks into a residential purchase having been directed to conveyancers by the selling agent to execute conveyancing in Exton. I am am starting to be disappointed with the quality of service. Could you help me find new conveyancers?

A conveyancer would have to be very poor to suggest diss instructing them. Has the mortgage been generated? In the event that it has you need to advise them of the new contact details and have the offer are re-sent. Your solicitor ideally needs to be on the banks panel to avoid supplemental expenses and complications. So that should be your first question of the new solicitors. The search tool will help you find a bank approved conveyancer for your home move in Exton

My son is just in the process of moving house, the home loan was agreed last week in principle. After the seller agreed the offer on the apartment we called the lender to issue the formal offer. We were disappointed to learn that banks do not accept all conveyancing practitioner, they must be on their panel, is this correct?

Mortgage Companies tend to restrict either the type or the number of conveyancing practices on their panel. Typical examples of such restriction(s) being that a firm must have two or more partners. In addition to restricting the type of firm, some have decided to limit the number of firms they use to represent them. You should note that banks have no responsibility for the quality of advice provided by any Exton conveyancer on their panel. Mortgage fraud was a key driver in the rationalisation of conveyancing panels a few years ago and whilst there are differing views about the extent of solicitor involvement in some of that fraud. Statistics from the Land Registry reveal that thousands of law firms only carry out one or two conveyances a year. Those supporting conveyancing panel cuts ask why law firms should have the right to be on a Lender panel when clearly, conveyancing is not their speciality. To put it another way; would you want a conveyancing solicitor to represent you if you were charged with a crime? Unlikely.