My fiance and I are planning to acquire a house in Morecambe and have appointed a Morecambe conveyancing firm. Within the past 48 hours our solicitor has forwarded the sale agreement to be signed with a detailed report in anticipation of exchanging contracts shortly. have this afternoon contacted us to advise us that there is now an issue as our Morecambe solicitor is not on their conveyancing panel. Is this a problem?

Where you are buying a property requiring a mortgage it is normal for the purchasers' solicitors to also act for the purchaser's lender. 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 solicitor should contact your mortgage company 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 bank's conveyancing panel and you may continue to use your own Morecambe solicitors, in which case it will likely add costs, and it will likely delay the transaction as you are adding another lawyer into the mix.

Finally the sale completed on my house in Morecambe last May but my buyer keeps e-mailing daily to say their solicitor is waiting to hear from myconveyancer. What should have happened following completion?

Following your disposal your conveyancer is obliged to forward the transfer documentation and all additional paperwork to the buyer’s conveyancer. Depending on the transaction, your lawyer must also send confirmation that the mortgage has been discharged to the buyers solicitors. There are no post completion tasks unique to conveyancing in Morecambe.

I am the sole recipient of my late grandmother’s will with all property in now in my sole name, including the my former home in Morecambe. Conveyancing formalities meant that the Land Registry date was in . I now wish to sell up. I understand that there is a CML 6 month 'rule', which means that my property ownership will be regarded the same way as though I had purchased the house in . Is the property unsalable for six months?

The Council of Mortgage Lenders’ handbook instructs conveyancers to: "report to us immediately if the owner or registered proprietor has been registered for less than six months." By the strict wording you could be impacted by that. Most banks would take a sensible view as this provision is principally there to identify subsales or the wholesaling and assigning of property.

Are all Morecambe Conveyancing Quality Solicitors on the conveyancing panel?

It is true that some lenders now use the accreditation scheme as the starting point for Panel membership such as HSBC and Santander. CQS accreditation however is no guarantee to lender panel acceptance. That being said,the Council of Mortgage Lenders have indicated that it is likely to become a pre-requisite for solicitor practices wishing to join their approved list of conveyancing solicitors.

I have paid off my mortgage with . I assume I don't need a Morecambe on the panel to discharge the mortgage at the Land Registry. Am I right?

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

I have justfound out that Arc property Solicitors have closed. They carried out my conveyancing in Morecambe for a purchase of a freehold house 18 months ago. How can I be sure that the property is in my name in the name of the former proprietor?

The quickest method to check if the premises is in your name, you can make a search of the land registry (£3.00). You can either do this yourself or ask a law firm to do this for you. If you are not registered you can seek help from one of a number of Morecambe conveyancing specialists.

I decided to have a survey completed on a property in Morecambe prior to retaining lawyers. I have been advised that there is a flying freehold aspect to the property. Our surveyor has said that some mortgage companies may not give a mortgage on a flying freehold home.

It depends who your proposed lender is. Santander has different instructions for example to Halifax. Should you wish to telephone us we can check with the appropriate lender. If you lender is happy to lend one our lawyers can assist as they are accustomed to dealing with flying freeholds in Morecambe. Conveyancing can be more complicated and therefore you should check with your conveyancing solicitor in Morecambe to see if the conveyancing will be more expensive.