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Habito’s conveyancing panel is pretty large so it would be advisable to check with the firms you are getting quotes from whether they are on it. You can search by postcode on the search tool on this site to find solicitors that Habito will allow to act for them.

On the face of it your lawyer has done nothing wrong as it is established procedure for any occupier who is aged 17 or over to sign the necessary Consent Form, which is purely to state that any rights he has in the property are postponed and secondary to Habito .This is solely used to protect the Habito if the property were re-possessed so that in such circumstances, your son would be legally obliged to leave.

It does not impact your son’s right to inherit the apartment. Please note that if your son were to inherit and the mortgage in favour of Habito had not been discharged, he would be liable to take over the loan or pay it off, but other than that, there is nothing stopping him from keeping the property in accordance with your will or the rules of intestacy.

We are a listing service only for law firms wishing to communicate if they are on the Habito conveyancing panel or other lender panels. We do not charge referral fees to the any conveyancer that you subsequently appoint.

If you have an estate agent involved then let them know 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 will need to appoint new lawyers that are on the Habito 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

If you are getting a mortgage with Habito involved you will need to appoint a solicitor on the Habito conveyancing panel. We would not encourage you to both use the same solicitors' firm. There are clear conflict of interest issues and it's not going to make a huge difference to the speed of the overall process. So as not to hold things us you should pass on your solicitors details to Habito. Feel free to use our search tool to look for a licensed conveyancer or solicitor on the Habito conveyancing panel.

Lenders such as Habito can withdraw their mortgage offer although this rarely happens. should Habito withdraw their offer they may or may not inform you or the lawyer as to the reasons why. There are various possible reasons but here are 5 examples:

• Many mortgage offers have an expiry date. Your lawyer should check this. Habito may amend or withdraw an offer before the end of its validation period if an offer extension is requested and following a re-evaluation of the property the value of the security is below a level which is acceptable to them.

• Situations where information provided by the borrower that enabled the lender to make a lending decision is fraudulent, incorrect or misleading.

• Where the sale is not at arms length for value to unconnected persons

• Where the lender is on notice of a restriction or a right of pre-emption which is not at market value

• Where the Lender’s right to possession is fettered in some way

They are simply saying that the cost for acting for the lender is included in the fee being quoted. It is worth you checking that they are on the Habito conveyancing panel