My fiance and I intend to remortgage our penthouse in Colwyn Bay with Co-operative. We have a son 18 who lives at home. Our solicitor requested us to identify anyone over the age of 17 other than ourselves who reside at the property. Our lawyer has now e-mailed a document for our son to sign, giving up any rights in the event that the property is repossessed. I have a couple of questions (1) Is this document specific to the Co-operative conveyancing panel as he never had to sign this form when we remortgaged 5 years ago (2) In signing this form is our son in any way compromising his right to inherit the property?

First, rest assured that your Co-operative conveyancing panel solicitor is doing the right thing as it is established procedure for any occupier who is aged 17 or over to sign the necessary Consent Form, which is purely to state that any rights he has in the property are postponed and secondary to Co-operative. This is solely used to protect Co-operative if the property were re-possessed so that in such circumstances, your son would be legally obliged to leave. It does not impact your son’s right to inherit the apartment. Please note that if your son were to inherit and the mortgage in favour of Co-operative had not been discharged, he would be liable to take over the loan or pay it off, but other than that, there is nothing stopping him from keeping the property in accordance with your will or the rules of intestacy.

Finally the sale completed on my house in Colwyn Bay last January yet the purchaser is texting every few hours complaining that her solicitor needs to hear from mine. What are the post completion sale formalities following completion?

After completion of your sale your conveyancer should forward the transfer documentation and all supplemental paperwork to the purchaser's lawyers. If applicable, your lawyer must also send confirmation that the mortgage has been redeemed to the purchasers lawyers. There are no post completion formalities peculiar conveyancing in Colwyn Bay.

Please explain the implications if my lawyer’s firm is removed from the Kent Reliance Conveyancing panel ahead of completing my conveyancing in Colwyn Bay?

The first thing to point out is that, this is a very rare occurrence. In most cases even where a law firm is removed off of a panel the lender would allow the completion to go ahead as the lender would appreciate the difficulties that they would place you in if you have to instruct a new solicitor days before completion. In a worst case scenario where the lender insists that you instruct a new firm then it is possible for a very good lawyer to expedite the conveyancing albeit that you may pay a significant premium for this. The analogous situation is where a buyer instructs a lawyer, exchanges contracts and the law firm is shut down by a regulator such as the SRA. Again, in this situation you can find lawyers who can troubleshoot their way to bring the conveyancing to a satisfactory conclusion - albeit for a fee.

We are buying a house and the conveyancer has mentioned Chancel Repair to which the house could be liable given it’s proximity to the area of such a church. He has suggested insurance. Is this really warranted for conveyancing in Colwyn Bay

Unless a prior acquisition of the house took place post 12 October 2013 you may assume that lawyers handling conveyancing in Colwyn Bay to remain recommending a chancel search and or insurance against a claim.

The conveyancers carrying out our conveyancing in Colwyn Bay has forwarded documents to review that reveal that the property is unregistered with epitome documents. Surely all property in Colwyn Bay are registered?

Over ninety percent of property in Colwyn Bay is registered. An 'epitome' is basically a dossier of photocopies of documents affecting an unregistered title. Plenty of Colwyn Bay conveyancing practitioners will be familiar with such matters but where uncertainty prevails the usual proposition presently seems to be for the seller to register the title first and then deal with the disposal - this will have a domino effect to result in a significant delay.