My god-son is buying a new build apartment in Ilfracombe with a home loan from Virgin Money. His conveyancer has advised him of a delay in completing the ‘Disclosure of Incentive Form’. What is this document - I have never come across this before?

The form is intended to provide information to the main parties involved in the transaction. Therefore, it will be provided to your son’s lawyer who should be on the Virgin Money conveyancing panel as a standard part of the process, and to the surveyor when requested. The developer will be required to start the process by downloading the form and completing it. The form will therefore need to be available for the valuer at the time of his or her site visit. The form should be sent to the Virgin Money conveyancing panel solicitor as early as possible, in order to avoid any last minute delays, and no later than at exchange of contracts.

What is the best way to check that the solicitor handling my conveyancing in Ilfracombe is on the lender’sapproved panel? I am looking to avoid the situation of having one lawyer for me and one for Britannia thus spending £175.00 in another set of legal bill.

Please do make use of the find a lender approved solicitor tool on this page. Please choose the mortgage company and type ‘Ilfracombe’ or your preferred area and you will see numerous conveyancers offices in Ilfracombe or near you.

I have paid off my mortgage with RBS. I assume I don't need a Ilfracombe property lawyer on the RBS panel to remove the mortgage at the Land Registry. Please confirm.

If you have finished paying off your RBS 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 RBS mortgage from the register. RBS, 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 RBS has sent the Land Registry the discharge electronically, and
3. RBS has instructed the Land Registry to do so

Completion of my remortgage has taken place for my property in Ilfracombe. Conveyancing was a necessary evil but I would like to complain about the lender. How do I make a complaint?

All banks and building societies have complaints procedures. Your first port of call should be one of the lender’s branches or the Customer Care Department at head office. In most cases complaints to a lender are resolved very quickly. However if you are not satisfied that the matter is not resolved you can write to Financial Ombudsman Service who will take matters further.

I recently had an offer agreed on a house in Ilfracombe. My financial adviser suggested a property lawyer. I paid an advanced payment of £200. Not long after, the conveyancer called me embarrassingly acknowledging that they were not on the HSBC 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 HSBC 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.

Are there common deficiencies that you encounter in leases for Ilfracombe properties?

There is nothing unique about leasehold conveyancing in Ilfracombe. All leases are drafted differently and drafting errors can result in certain clauses are erroneous. For example, if your lease is missing any of the following, it could be defective:

A provision for the recovery of money spent for the benefit of another party.

You will encounter difficulties when selling your property if you have a defective lease as they can affect a potential buyer’s ability to obtain a mortgage. Lloyds TSB Bank, The Royal Bank of Scotland, and Bank of Ireland all have very detailed conveyancing instructions when it comes to what is expected in a lease. Where a lender has been advised by their lawyers that the lease is problematic they may refuse to grant the mortgage, forcing the buyer to pull out.

I inherited a 1st floor flat in Ilfracombe, conveyancing having been completed July 2009. Can you work out an approximate cost of a lease extension? Comparable properties in Ilfracombe with over 90 years remaining are worth £186,000. The average or mid-range amount of ground rent is £55 levied per year. The lease expires on 21st October 2076

With 52 years remaining on your lease we estimate the price of your lease extension to span between £29,500 and £34,000 plus costs.

The figure above a general guide to costs for extending a lease, but we cannot give you the actual costs without more detailed investigations. Do not use the figures in a Notice of Claim or as an informal offer. There may be additional concerns that need to be taken into account and you obviously should be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. Please do not take any other action based on this information before getting professional advice.

Do I have to attend the offices of the mortgage company conveyancing panel solicitor to execute the mortgage deed? If so, I will instruct a firm who offer conveyancing in Ilfracombe as it will be easier to attend their offices when needed.

Whereas this was necessary 15 years ago, most lenders no longer require their conveyancing panel solicitor to witness the borrowers signature. You will still be obliged to provide ID Documents and there are still distinct advantages to using a local solicitor, in your case a conveyancing solicitor in Ilfracombe.