We are about to exchange contracts for a ground floor flat in St Johns. We encountered a stumbling block. The mortgage offer with Accord Mortgages Ltd runs out on 2/3/2026 but the sellers are insisting on a completion date of 4/3/2026. Is it possible to extend the mortgage offer?

The person best placed to address this issue is your solicitors who should determine if they better off negotiating with the mortgage broker, seller’s representatives, estate agents or conceivably all parties based on what has happend in your house move to date.

What is the optimum way to investigate if the solicitor handling my conveyancing in St Johns is on the lender’sconveyancing panel? I am looking to avoid the situation of having one lawyer for me and one for TSB thus spending £175.00 in another set of conveyancing costs.

You should make the most of the search tool on this web page. Please choose the mortgage company and type ‘St Johns’ or your preferred area and you will be presented with a number of lawyer offices in St Johns or nearest you.

I used Arc property Solicitors a few years past for my conveyancing in St Johns. Now, I need my files but cannot find the solicitor. What do I do?

You should contact the Solicitors Regulatory Authority (SRA) to help locate your conveyancing files. They can be contacted on please contact on 0870 606 2555. Alternatively, you should use their online form to make an enquiry. You will need to provide the SRA with as much information as possible to assist their search, including the name and address in St Johns of the conveyancing firm of solicitors you previously retained, the name of conveyancing solicitor with whom you had dealings, and the date on which you last had dealings with the firm.

I'm purchasing a new build house in St Johns benefiting from help to buy. The developers would not reduce the amount so I negotiated five thousand pounds worth of additionals instead. The sale representative told me not to tell my solicitor about the extras as it would jeopardize my loan with the lender. Is this normal?.

All lenders require a Disclosure of Incentives Form from the developer 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 element on a house I put an offer in two weeks back in what was supposed to be a straight forward, no chain conveyancing. St Johns is the location of the property. Can you offer any assistance?

Flying freeholds in St Johns are unusual but are more likely to exist in relation to terraced houses. Even where you use a solicitor outside St Johns you would need to get your solicitor to go through the deeds diligently. Your mortgage company may require your conveyancing solicitor to take out an indemnity policy. Some of the more diligent conveyancing solicitors in St Johns 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.