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You may be very frustrated with the lawyer but if it only go take a few more days they it may be worth waiting as, depending on how far progressed you are you may end up delaying the transaction by a number of weeks if you need to replace your solicitor You may wish to enlist the help of your broker to check with the Bradford & Bingley as to how long they think it will take to get the firm to get back on the panel.

Unfortunately both you and your lawyer have little choice here. As you are taking a mortgage with Bradford & Bingley your lawyer has to comply with their conditions as set out in their version of the CML Conveyancing Handbook. Your lawyer would have previously signed the Terms and Conditions of Bradford & Bingley’s conveyancing panel appointment which obliges them to follow the CML Handbook requirements last updated Bradford & Bingley. even if you were a cash buyer you would be ill advised not to carry out a local authority search.

The law firms listed on our site have assured us via an online form that they are on the Bradford & Bingley panel and agreed to advise us to take down their listing in the event of removal off of the Bradford & Bingley panel. To date we have not been informed by either a mortgage company or a member of the public that the data about a specific firm being on the Bradford & Bingley conveyancing panel is incorrect.

If you have an estate agent involved then inform them straight away so that they advise the vendors that there may be a slight delay due to the problems encountered. Hopefully they will be sympathetic and urge their lawyer to send a new set of papers to your new solicitors. You should appoint new lawyers that are on the Bradford & Bingley conveyancing panel and notify the lender. If you have paid over any money it will hopefully be held by the SRA as money in an intervened firm's bank accounts is transferred to the SRA. Then, the SRA or the intervention agent looks at the intervened firm's accounts to work out who the money belongs to. To claim your money you will need to contact the SRA. If the SRA cannot return money you are owed from the firm's bank accounts, or if they can only return part of the money, you can apply to the Compensation Fund for a grant. Your new lawyers should be in a position to help

You will need to appoint solicitors independently although you'll need to choose one on the Bradford & Bingley conveyancing panel. The solicitor represents both you and the Bradford & Bingley through the process.

You should start obtaining conveyancing quotes from solicitors ASAP. Once you decide who you want to use and once your offer is accepted you can instruct them to work for you and pass their details on the the estate agent. As you are getting a mortgage with Bradford & Bingley , ask your prospective lawyers check they are on the Bradford & Bingley conveyancing panel otherwise they can't do the mortgage legal work.

It is usual to have concerns where there is a chain as you are unlikely to want to be too out of pocket too early (mortgage application is approx £1k, then survey/valuation, conveyancing search costs, etc). First you should check that your solicitor is on the Bradford & Bingley conveyancing panel. As to the next stages this very much depends on the circumstances of your case, desire for this property and on the state of the market. In a hot mortgage some buyers would pally for the mortgage with Bradford & Bingley and pay for the valuation and only if it comes back ok would they pay their solicitor to press on with searches.