My partner and I are looking to acquire a house in Helston and have instructed a Helston conveyancing practice. Within the past 48 hours our conveyancer has forwarded the sale agreement to be signed with a detailed report in anticipation of exchanging contracts shortly. Nottingham Building Society have this morning contacted us to advise us that they have now hit a problem as our Helston lawyer 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 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 solicitor 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 are not legally obliged to appoint a law firm on the lender’s conveyancing panel and you may continue to use your own Helston solicitors, in which case your legal fees may increase, and it will likely delay the transaction as you are adding another lawyer into the mix.

I am acquiring a property without a mortgage in Helston. I have lived for the last dozen years in Helston. Conveyancing searches are expensive. As I have knowledge of the area and road intimately should I not bother getting the solicitor to do all the conveyancing searches?

If you not getting a home loan, then all but one or two of the Helston conveyancing searches are at your discretion. Your solicitor will ’encourage you, perhaps strongly, that you should have searches completed, but he has a professional duty to take that path of guidance. Do take into account; if you are likely to sell the house at a future date, it will likely be be of interest to your prospective purchaser what the searches contain. There are plenty of instances where premises with apparent issues can still show up unfavourable search results. A competent conveyancing solicitor in Helston will provide you some constructive guidance in this regard.

I am buying my first flat in Helston benefiting from help to buy. The builders refused to move on the amount so I negotiated £7000 of fixtures and fittings instead. The estate agent suggested that I not disclose to my lawyer about this side-deal as it will adversely affect my mortgage with Lloyds TSB Bank. Is this normal?.

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've recently found out that there is a flying freehold issue on a property I put an offer in last month in what was supposed to be a straight forward, no chain conveyancing. Helston is the location of the property. What do you suggest?

Flying freeholds in Helston are unusual but are more likely to exist in relation to terraced houses. Even though you don't necessarily need a conveyancing solicitor in Helston you would need to get your solicitor to go through the deeds very carefully. Your bank may require your conveyancing solicitor to take out an indemnity policy. Some of the more diligent conveyancing solicitors in Helston may determine that this is not enough and that the deeds be re-written to give you the most up to date legal protection. If so, the next door neighbour also had to sign up to the revised deeds.It is possible that your lender will not accept the situation so the sooner you find out the better. You should also check with your insurance broker as to whether they will insure a flying freehold property.

We have had DIP from Barclays who indicated that they will loan up to £218k. At what point do we need to instruct a solicitor for conveyancing? Helston is where we plan to move to.

It would be wise to instruct a conveyancer now so that the solicitor can open the ledger so they can conduct their AML checks etc. If and when you wish them to start work you will be asked for a deposit usually approximately £225. That should generally be once you have the mortgage offer and valuation report, but if you want to expedite the process you can start the ball rolling sooner albeit risking some money.