I plan on purchasing an apartment in Northumberland. My property lawyer is not on the bank conveyancing list. Is it possible for me to retain my Northumberland conveyancing solicitor even though they are not on the mortgage company list of approved lawyers?

Your options include

• Carry on with your preferred Northumberland but your lender will no doubt use a from their approved panel. This will result in additional fees and potential delay.
• Choose a fresh to act in the purchase, obviously checking they are on the lender conveyancing panel.
• Convince your solicitor to pull out all the stops to get listed on the mortgage company conveyancing panel

What is the difference between a licensed conveyancer and conveyancing solicitor in Northumberland

There are many registered licenced Conveyancers in Northumberland and Solicitor firms in Northumberland who provide Conveyancing services We would stress that the two are supervised by regulatory bodies with both specialising in the legal aspects of the home buying process. Both can handle associated property related work such as remortgage conveyancing, lease extensions and transfer of equity conveyancing.

I'm the only recipient of my late mum's will with all property in now in my sole name, including the house in Northumberland. The Northumberland property was put into my name in . I now wish to sell up. I understand that there is a Mortgage Lenders six month 'rule', meaning my property ownership may be treated the same way as if I'd bought the property in . Do I have to wait half a year to sell?

The CML handbook requires conveyancers to: "report to us immediately if the owner or registered proprietor has been registered for less than six months." Technically you might be impacted by that. How sensible a view lenders take of it, depend on the mortgage company as this clause is principally there to identify subsales or the wholesaling and assigning of property.

I'm in the throws of looking at apartments in Northumberland and I am about to put in an offer. Is it too early to have a solicitor in place? I will be getting a home loan with .

You should start requesting conveyancing estimates from solicitors ASAP. After you have chosen your lawyer and once your offer is accepted you can instruct them to work for you and pass their details on to the EA. Given that you are seeking a mortgage with , make sure you remember to check that your lawyer is on the conveyancing panel.

A colleague suggested that if I am purchasing in Northumberland I should carry out a Neighbourhood, Planning and Local Amenity Search. What does it cover?

This is a search is usually included in the estimate for your Northumberland conveyancing searches. It is a large document of about 40 pages, listing and detailing significant information about Northumberland around the property and the people living there. It includes an Aerial Photograph, Planning Applications, Land Use, Mobile Phone Masts, Rights of Way, the local Housing Market, Council Tax Banding, the type of People living in the area, the dominant type of Housing, the Average Property Price, Crime details, Northumberland Education with plans and statistics, Local Amenities and other useful information concerning Northumberland.

3 months have elapsed following my purchase conveyancing in Northumberland took place. I have checked the Land Registry website which shows that I paid £200,000 when infact I paid £160,000. Why the discrepancy?

The price paid figure is taken from the application to register the purchase. It is the figure included in the Transfer (the legal deed which transfers the premises from one person to the other) and referred to as the 'consideration' or purchase price. You can report an error in the price paid figure using the LR online form. In most cases errors result from typos so at first glance the figure. Do report it so they can double check and advise.

I'm converting the mortgage on my existing house to a BTL loan with and I will use the ballance of the raised equity towards a second house. The area we are looking at is Northumberland. Will your conveyancers be able to act for both sets of mortgage companies and link together the transactions?

Do use our search tool on this site to be sure that the conveyancers are approved by both lenders. Assuming that they are the solicitor will be able to simultaneously deal with the two deals but you should have a chat with you lawyer and communicate your expectations and requirements.