Me and my fiance are buying a 3 bedroom apartment in Vauxhall with a mortgage. We would like to retain our Vauxhall conveyancer, but the mortgage company says she’s not on their "panel". We have to appoint one of the bank panel solicitors or keep our Vauxhall solicitor as well as pay for one of their panel firms to represent them. This feels very unfair; can we not require that the bank use our Vauxhall conveyancing practitioner ?

Unfortunately,no. Your mortgage offer is subject to its terms and conditions, one of which will be that lawyers will on the lender’s conveyancing panel. Until recently, most lenders 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 Vauxhall conveyancing solicitor to apply to be on the conveyancing panel.

Would the conveyancing solicitors that you recommend carry out right to buy conveyancing in Vauxhall?

We have identified a number of conveyancing lawyers carrying out right to buy transactions You should get in touch with us in order to obtain a costs calculation.

I opted to have a survey done on a house in Vauxhall in advance of appointing solicitors. I have been informed that there is a flying freehold element to the property. Our surveyor has said that some banks tend refuse to issue a loan on this type of premises.

It depends who your proposed lender is. Bank of Scotland has different instructions for example to Halifax. If you e-mail us we can check via the appropriate mortgage company. If you lender is happy to lend one our lawyers can assist as they are accustomed to dealing with flying freeholds in Vauxhall. Conveyancing can be more complicated and therefore you should check with your conveyancing solicitor in Vauxhall to see if the conveyancing costs will increase in light of this.

I was recommended by a number of selling agents in Vauxhall to choose a solicitor using your seach tool. What’s the financial upside for Estate Agents to recommend your lawyers ahead of another?

We don’t make any referral fee for directing people to this site. We thought it would be too underhand a fee because members of the public would think, ‘How come the agent getting a kickback? Why am I not receiving any benefit too?’ So we decided to step away from that.

Is there a reason that Vauxhall conveyancing costs are higher for leasehold and freehold properties?

If acquiring a leasehold property there is more work involved purely due to the fact that usually there are further parties involved in the form of the freeholder and/or Management Agents. As part of a lawyers enquiries they will check that all ground rent and service charges are paid up to date amongst other general leasehold matters. For this reason, the Sellers lawyers usually have to refer to the freeholder or Managing Agent for their replies to our questions. This may be time consuming and beyond the lawyers control