My husband and I are acquiring a new build duplex in Hatfield and my lawyer is informing me that she has to the bank to reveal incentives from the developer. I am under pressure to exchange and I don't want to prolong matters. is my lawyer playing by the book?

You should not exchange unless you have been advised to do so by your conveyancing practitioner. A precondition to being on a lender panel is to comply with the UK Finance Lenders’ Handbook requirements. The CML Conveyancing Handbook requires that your lawyer have the appropriate Disclosure of Incentive form completed by the developer and accepted by your lender.

I have today made my last payment due on my mortgage with Virgin Money. I assume I don't need a Hatfield solicitor on the Virgin Money panel to remove the mortgage at the Land Registry. Please confirm.

If you have finished paying off your Virgin Money mortgage, they may send you evidence showing that you have paid it off. Alternatively they may notify the Land Registry directly. The Land Registry need to see this evidence before they will remove the Virgin Money mortgage from the register. Virgin Money, and any evidence they send you, will determine the action you need to take. In cases where no conveyancer is acting for you and you have paid off your mortgage:

1. but are not moving to another property
2. where Virgin Money has sent the Land Registry the discharge electronically, and
3. Virgin Money has instructed the Land Registry to do so

I recently had an offer accepted on an apartment in Hatfield. My mortgage broker recommended their conveyancers. I paid an on account payment of £200. Not long after, the property lawyer called me to say that they were not on the Bank of Ireland conveyancing panel. Am I right in thinking that I should be due a refund?

You should be able to recover this from the law firm if they were not on the Bank of Ireland panel. They should have asked at the outset which lender you were obtaining a mortgage with. An important lesson to readers of this site is to check that the lawyers are on the appropriate lender panel.

I had an offer accepted on a house in Hatfield on 8/1/2026, valuation was booked 2 days later, received a clean bill of health. Conveyancer appointed, so all that was missing was my mortgage offer. Having made daily calls to Coventry BS and chasing them on my offer, I have now been told that my offer will not be issued unless the lawyer is on the Coventry BS conveyancing panel. Are Coventry BS entitled to hold back the Mortgage pending the lawyer being on the approved list?

Mortgage companies tend not to not issue a mortgage until they have details of a lawyer on their panel. It can take a few weeks for Coventry BS to deal with your lawyer's application to be on the Coventry BS conveyancing panel. There's no guarantee that your solicitor will be accepted.

Over the last few months I have been searching for a ground for flat up to £305k and identified one near me in Hatfield I like with amenity areas and station nearby, however it only has 51 years unexpired on the lease. There is not much else in Hatfield suitable, so just wondered if I would be making a mistake purchasing a lease with such few years left?

Should you require a home loan the remaining unexpired lease term may be an issue. Reduce the price by the anticipated lease extension will cost if it has not already been discounted. If the current owner has owned the property for at least 2 years you could request that they start the process of the extension and then assign it to you. An additional ninety years can be extended on to the current lease term with a zero ground rent applied. You should speak to your conveyancing solicitor regarding this matter.

How simple is it to use the search facility to choose a conveyancing practitioner in Hatfield on the approved list for my mortgage?

First select a bank such as Halifax, Barnsley Building Society or Godiva Mortgages Ltd then specify your location such as Hatfield. Conveyancing organisations in Hatfield and nationally will then be shown.

Helen (my wife) and I may need to rent out our Hatfield 1st floor flat temporarily due to a career opportunity. We instructed a Hatfield conveyancing firm in 2001 but they have closed and we did not have the foresight to get any advice as to whether the lease permits subletting. How do we find out?

The lease dictates relations between the landlord and you the flat owner; specifically, it will say if subletting is prohibited, or permitted but only subject to certain conditions. The accepted inference is that if the lease contains no specific ban or restriction, subletting is allowed. Most leases in Hatfield do not prevent subletting altogether – such a clause would undoubtedly devalue the property. In most cases there is a basic requirement that the owner notifies the freeholder, possibly sending a duplicate of the tenancy agreement.

I acquired a 2 bed flat in Hatfield, conveyancing having been completed May 2002. How much will my lease extension cost? Comparable properties in Hatfield with an extended lease are worth £185,000. The ground rent is £65 yearly. The lease runs out on 21st October 2087

With only 61 years remaining on your lease we estimate the price of your lease extension to span between £19,000 and £22,000 plus legals.

The figure that we have given is a general guide to costs for extending a lease, but we cannot give you the actual costs in the absence of detailed investigations. Do not use this information in tribunal or court proceedings. There are no doubt other concerns that need to be considered and you obviously want to be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. Neither should you move forward based on this information without first getting professional advice.