My partner and I are looking to acquire a house in Greater Manchester and have appointed a Greater Manchester conveyancing firm. Within the last couple of days our conveyancer has sent a preliminary report and documents to look through with a view to exchanging next week. Barclays Direct have this morning contacted us to advise us that there is now an issue as our Greater Manchester conveyancer is not on their conveyancing panel. Please explain?

When purchasing a property with mortgage finance it is usual for the purchasers' solicitors 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 property lawyer should contact your bank 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 as you are at liberty to use your preferred Greater Manchester lawyers, in which case your legal fees may increase, and it will likely delay the transaction as you have another set of people involved.

AssumingI was to buy a straightforward propertyin Greater Manchester for cash and have no survey and no conveyancing searches how much could I expect to to save on my conveyancing in Greater Manchester?

The only saving you would achieve is the Greater Manchester conveyancing searches. The lawyer still be obliged to do everything else - money laundering, correspond with the sellers property lawyer, stamp duty return, register the ownership etc. You might save a bit for them not having to register a charge however it will not be a lot.

We see that you have a search directory listing law firms on the Virgin Money conveyancing panel. Do firms pay you a referral fee if I retain them for our conveyancing in Greater Manchester?

We are a listing service only for law firms wishing to communicate if they are on the Virgin Money conveyancing panel or other lender panels. We do not charge referral fees to any conveyancer that you subsequently appoint for your conveyancing in Greater Manchester.

Despite weeks of looking the Title Certificate and documents to my home are lost. The solicitors who did the conveyancing in Greater Manchester 4 years ago are no longer around. What do I do?

Gone are the days when you need to have the physical official documentation to prove you are the owner of your registered land or premises, given that the Land Registry have everything they need in a digital format.

I was recommended by a few property agents in Greater Manchester to choose a solicitor on your site. Is there a financial advantage for Estate Agents to recommend your lawyers over alternative conveyancing organisations?

We don’t offer any financial incentive for sending work in our direction. We thought it would be too underhand a fee as home movers will think, ‘How come the agent getting a kickback? Why aren’t I getting any benefit too?’ So we decided to step away from that.