My fiance and I are hoping to buy a home in Carmarthen and are in fact using a Carmarthen conveyancing firm. Within the last couple of days our lawyer has forwarded the sale agreement to be signed with a detailed report in anticipation of exchanging contracts shortly. Bank of Ireland have this morning contacted us to advise us that they have now hit a problem as our Carmarthen lawyer is not on their conveyancing panel. Is this a problem?

Where you are buying a property with the assistance of a mortgage it is normal for the purchasers' lawyers 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 Accreditation 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 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 Carmarthen solicitors, in which case it will likely add costs, and it will likely delay the transaction as you are adding another lawyer into the mix.

We are planning to acquire a property and require a conveyancing solicitor in Carmarthen who is on the Principality approved panel. Can you recommend a local firm?

Our service is limited to being a directory service for firms who wish to be listed as being on the approved conveyancing panel for Principality . We don't recommend any particular firms conducting conveyancing in Carmarthen.

I own a renovated Edwardian house in Carmarthen. Conveyancing practitioner acted for me and National Westminster Bank. I happened to do a free search for it on the Land Registry database and there are two entries: one for freehold, the second leasehold under the exact same address. I thought I was buying a freehold how can I check?

You need to review the Freehold register you have again and check the Charges Register for mention of a lease. The best way to be sure that you are also the registered proprietor of the leasehold and freehold title as well is to check (£3). It is not completely unheard of in Carmarthen and other areas of the country and poses no real issues for owners other than when they remortgage they have to account for both freehold and leasehold interests when dealing with mortgage companies. You can also check the position with your conveyancing solicitor who conducted the conveyancing.

I am purchasing a new build house in Carmarthen with a loan from Birmingham Midshires. The sellers would not reduce the price so I negotiated five thousand pounds worth of extras instead. The property agent advised me not inform my conveyancer about the deal as it could impact my loan with Birmingham Midshires. Do I keep my lawyer in the dark?.

All lenders require a Disclosure of Incentives Form from the developer 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 decided to have a survey carried out on a property in Carmarthen before retaining lawyers. I have been informed that there is a flying freehold aspect to the house. My surveyor advised that some banks will refuse to issue a loan on this type of house.

It varies from the lender to lender. HSBC has different requirements from Nationwide. Should you wish to telephone us we can look into this further via the relevant mortgage company. If you lender is happy to lend one our lawyers can assist as they are used to dealing with flying freeholds in Carmarthen. Conveyancing can be more complicated and therefore you should check with your conveyancing solicitor in Carmarthen to see if the conveyancing costs will increase in light of this.