The Crediton conveyancing lawyers that I appointed last week on my house acquisition in Crediton have without warning shut down. They were on acting for me because I had to have a lawyer on the Leeds Building Society conveyancing panel and my preferred Crediton lawyer was not. I paid them £170 in advance. What are my options?

If you have an estate agent involved then inform them immediately so that they advise the vendors that there may be a slight delay due to reasons beyond your control. Most sellers would be sympathetic and urge their lawyer to send a new set of papers to your new solicitors. You will need to appoint new lawyers that are on the Leeds Building Society conveyancing panel and notify the lender. If you have paid over any money, it will hopefully be held by the SRA as money in an intervened firm's bank accounts is transferred to the SRA. Then, the SRA or the intervention agent looks at the intervened firm's accounts to work out who the money belongs to. To claim your money you will need to contact the SRA. If the SRA cannot return money you are owed from the firm's bank accounts, or if they can only return part of the money, you can apply to the Compensation Fund for a grant. Your new lawyers should be in a position to assist.

It has been 4 months following my purchase conveyancing in Crediton completed. I have checked the Land Registry site which shows that I paid £150,000 when infact I paid £180,000. Why the discrepancy?

The price paid figure is taken from the application to register the purchase. It is the figure included in the Transfer (the legal deed which transfers the residence from one person to the other) and referred to as the 'consideration' or purchase price. You can report an error in the price paid figure using the LR online form. In most cases errors result from typos so at first glance the figure. Do report it so they can double check and advise.

I am buying a new build house in Crediton with the aid of help to buy. The developers refused to budge the amount so I negotiated five thousand pounds worth of additionals instead. The sale representative told me not to tell my lawyer about the side-deal as it will affect my loan with the bank. Do I keep my lawyer in the dark?.

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 decided to have a survey done on a property in Crediton ahead of retaining lawyers. I have been advised that there is a flying freehold aspect to the property. The surveyor advised that some mortgage companies will not give a mortgage on such a home.

It depends who your proposed lender is. Bank of Scotland has different instructions from Halifax. If you e-mail us we can look into this further via the relevant lender. If you lender is happy to lend one our lawyers can help as they are used to dealing with flying freeholds in Crediton. Conveyancing can be more complicated and therefore you should check with your conveyancing solicitor in Crediton to see if the conveyancing costs will increase in light of this.

My partner has recommend that I instruct his lawyers for conveyancing in Crediton. Do I follow his recommendation?

There are no two ways about it the best way to select a conveyancing lawyer is to get recommendations from friends or relatives who have experience in using the solicitor that you are are thinking of instructing.