My fiance and I are planning to acquire a flat in East Oxford and have instructed a East Oxford conveyancing practice. Within the last couple of days our conveyancer has forwarded the sale agreement to be signed with a detailed report with the expectation that exchange is imminent. Bank of Scotland have this afternoon contacted us to inform me that they have now hit a problem as our East Oxford solicitor is not on their conveyancing panel. Please explain?

When purchasing a property with the benefit of a mortgage it is conventional for the purchasers' lawyers to also represent 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 Quality Scheme. Your property lawyer 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 don't have to instruct a firm on the lender’s conveyancing panel and you may continue to use your own East Oxford solicitors, in which case your legal fees may increase, and it will likely delay the transaction as you have another set of people involved.

The deeds to our home are lost. The solicitors who handled the conveyancing in East Oxford 10 years ago have long since closed. What are my options?

As long as the title is registered the details of your proprietorship will be held by HMLR under a Title Number. It is easy to carry out a search at the Land Registry, find your house and obtain up to date copies of the property title for less than a fiver. If the title is Leasehold then the Land Registry will also normally hold a file copy of the Registered Lease and again, a copy can be retrieved for a small fee.

I'm buying my first flat in East Oxford with the aid of help to buy. The developers would not budge the price so I negotiated 6k of additionals instead. The estate agent told me not to tell my lawyer about this extras as it may impact my mortgage with the bank. Should I keep quiet?.

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 completed on a house in East Oxford prior to retaining solicitors. I have been advised that there is a flying freehold aspect to the property. Our surveyor has said that some mortgage companies tend not grant a mortgage on a flying freehold premises.

It depends who your proposed lender is. HSBC has different requirements from Halifax. If you e-mail us we can look into this further with the relevant mortgage company. If you lender is happy to lend one our lawyers can help as they are accustomed to dealing with flying freeholds in East Oxford. Conveyancing can be more complicated and therefore you should check with your conveyancing solicitor in East Oxford to see if the conveyancing will be more expensive.

I own a leasehold flat in East Oxford. Conveyancing was finalised in last year. I have read on numerous consumer forums that I mustn’t allow the lease length fall too short. Why is that a problem?

East Oxford leasehold properties are for a fixed period - often ninety nine years when they are first granted. However many flats in East Oxford were constructed or converted in the 70’s80’s and so these leases now have fewer than 80 years unexpired. That may sound like plenty of time but Banks, Building Societies and other mortgage lenders on the whole require leases to have at least seventy five years unexpired to be mortgageable. This means that when you come to sell the property you will need to extend the term of your lease if you are nearing seventy five years. To optimize the marketability of your property you should be thinking about whether to extend your lease long before you come to sell it. You should note that there are significant benefits to doing so before the lease hits 80 years as when the lease is below 80 years the premium to be paid to extend starts to escalate.