My wife and I are looking to acquire a property in Thornbury and are in fact using a Thornbury conveyancing practice. Within the last couple of days our lawyer has forwarded the sale agreement to be signed with a detailed report with a view to exchanging next week. Barclays Direct have this afternoon contacted us to inform me that there is now an issue as our Thornbury solicitor is not on their conveyancing panel. Please explain?

When purchasing a property with the benefit of a mortgage it is normal for the purchasers' lawyers to also represent the purchaser's lender. 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 lender and see if they can apply for membership of their conveyancing panel, but if that is not viable they will instruct their own lawyers to represent them. You are not legally obliged to appoint a law firm on the bank's conveyancing panel and you may continue to use your own Thornbury solicitors, in which case your legal fees may increase, and it will likely delay the transaction as you have another set of people involved.

This question may be naive but I am new to the home buying as FTB of a ground floor flat in Thornbury. Do I receive the keys to the house on the completion date from my conveyancer? If so, I will appoint a local conveyancing solicitor in Thornbury?

There is no need to visit the lawyers office on the day of completion. Your solicitors will arrange to send the purchase money to the owner’s conveyancers, and shortly after the monies have arrived, you should be called to receive the keys from the Estate Agents and move into your new home. Usually this occurs early afternoon.

We previously appointed conveyancers located in Thornbury on the Kent Reliance solicitor approved list. They have just billed me a further fee for the legal aspects of the Kent Reliance mortgage. Is this a supplemental conveyancing fee set by Kent Reliance?

Unfortunately, as long as it is in their Terms and Conditions or estimate then yes your conveyancer is entitled to levy a fee for this. The fee is not dictated by Kent Reliance but by your Thornbury property lawyer. Plenty of firms on the Kent Reliance panel will levy ’dealing with mortgage’ fee and others do not.

My partner and I have organised a further advance on our mortgage from Aldermore as we intend to carry out improvements to our home in Thornbury. Do we need to appoint a nearby Thornbury solicitor on the Aldermore conveyancing panel to deal with the paperwork?

Aldermore don't usually require firms on their approved list of lawyers to handle such a matter. If they do require any legal work then you would need to ensure that such a lawyer was on the Aldermore list.

I have been told that property searches are a common reason for hinderance in Thornbury house deals. Is this right?

The Council of Property Search Organisations (CoPSO) published findings of research by MoveWithUs that conveyancing searches do not feature within the most frequent causes of hindrances during the legal transfer of property. Local searches are unlikely to be the root cause of holding up conveyancing in Thornbury.

I'm refinancing my primary property to a BTL mortgage with Accord Mortgages Ltd and I will use the ballance of the raised equity as a down payment on a second house. The location we are talking about is Thornbury. Will your solicitors be able to act for the two banks and tie in the conveyances?

Make use of our search tool on this page to check that the lawyers are on the relevant lender panels. On the basis that they are the solicitor will be able to tie up the two conveyancing matters but you should talk with you conveyancer and make apparent your expectations and requirements.

I own a leasehold flat in Thornbury. Conveyancing was finished in five years ago. I have read on various consumer forums that I should not allow the lease length get too short. Is this right?

Thornbury domestic long term leases are for a prescribed term - often just under one hundred years when they started. However many flats in Thornbury were constructed or converted in the 70’s80’s and so such leases now have fewer than eighty years left to run. That may seem like a long time however Banks, Building Societies and other mortgage companies tend to require leases to have at least seventy five years left to adequate security. Accordingly when you come to sell the property you will need to extend the term of your lease if you are nearing eighty years. To enhance the saleability of your property you should be thinking about whether to extend your lease well in advance of selling the property. You should note that there are advantages to taking action before the lease hits eighty years as when the lease is below 80 years the premium you have to pay to extend starts to get a lot more expensive.