My solicitor has identified a a legal deficiency with the lease for the flat we are buying in Portland. The other side have offered defective title insurance as a solution. We are happy with insurance and will cover the costs. Our solicitor has advised that he must check that the bank is willing to move forward with this solution. Who is the client here, us or the lender?

Even though you have a mortgage offer from the mortgage company does not mean to say that the property will meet their requirements for the purposes of a mortgage. Your lawyer has to ensure that the lease has to comply with the UK Finance Lenders’ Handbook requirements. You and the bank are the client. These conveyancing instructions have to be complied with.

We are buying a flat in Portland. I might seem paranoid but how we can trust a conveyancer? At some point we have to put funds into their account. What is the protection we have from them run away with our monies?

Be assured that all money in a Solicitors client account is 100% safe, and even if your Solicitor ran off with it, the Law Society would reimburse you fully.

I recently had an offer accepted on a house in Portland. My mortgage broker suggested a conveyancer. I paid an on account payment of £150. Not long after, the property lawyer called me embarrassingly acknowledging that they were not on the Co-operative 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 Co-operative 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.

My offer was accepted on a house in Portland on 9/8/2021, valuation was booked five days later, all came back fine. Conveyancer retained, so all that was missing was my mortgage offer. Having made daily calls to Santander and chasing them on my offer, I have now been told that my offer will not be issued unless the lawyer is on the Santander conveyancing panel. Are Santander 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 Santander to deal with your lawyer's application to be on the Santander conveyancing panel. There's no guarantee that your solicitor will be accepted.

I am looking into buying my first house which is in Portland and I am already nervous. I couldn't find anything specific about Portland. Conveyancing will be needed in due course but do you know about the Portland area? or perhaps some other tips you can share?

Rather than looking online forget looking online you should go and have a look at Portland. In the meantime here are some basic statistics that we found

We're FTB’s - had an offer accepted, yet the selling agent has warned us that the owners will only proceed if we instruct their recommended solicitors as they want an ‘expedited deal’. My instinct tells me that we should use a high street solicitor used to conveyancing in Portland

We suspect that the owner is not behind this ultimatum. Should the owner require ‘a quick sale', turning down a serious purchaser is likely to cause more damage than good. Try to communicate with the sellers directly and make the point that (a)you are keen to buy (b)you are ready to progress, with finances in place © you do not need to sell (d) you intend to proceed fast (e)however you will continue to instruct your own,trusted Portland conveyancing lawyers - not the ones that will give their negotiator at the agency a introducer fee or achieve conveyancing figures set by senior management.

I am an executor of my recently deceased parent's Will, with a property in Portland which will be sold. The property has never been registered at the Land Registry and I'm advised that many buyers solicitors will insist that it is in place before they will move forward. What's the mechanism for this?

In the circumstances you refer to it seems prudent to seek to register in the names of the personal representative(s) as named in the probate and in their capacity as PRs. HMLR’s online guidance explains how to register for the first time and what is required re the deeds and forms. You would need to include and certified copy of the probate as well and complete the form FR1 to refer to the PRs as the applicant.