My wife and I are hoping to buy a home in Maulden and are in fact using a Maulden conveyancing practice. Within the past 48 hours our conveyancer has sent a preliminary report and documents to look through with the expectation that exchange is imminent. Halifax have this afternoon contacted us to advise us that they have now hit a problem as our Maulden conveyancer is not on their approved list of lawyers. Is this a problem?

If you are buying a property with the assistance of a mortgage it is conventional for the purchasers' lawyers to also act for the purchaser's lender. In order to act for a bank or building society a law firm has to be on that lender's conveyancing panel. An application has to be made by the law firm to the lender to become a member of the lender's panel and there are increasingly strict criteria which the firm has to satisfy and indeed some lenders now require their panel members to be part of the Law Society’s Conveyancing Quality Scheme. Your property lawyer should contact your bank and see if they can apply for membership of their conveyancing panel, but if that is not viable they will instruct their own solicitors to act. You are not legally obliged to appoint a law firm on the lender’s conveyancing panel as you are at liberty to use your preferred Maulden lawyers, in which case it will likely add costs, and it will likely delay the transaction as you have another set of people involved.

Despite weeks of looking the Title Certificate and documents to my property can not be found. The conveyancers who dealt with the conveyancing in Maulden 10 years ago are no longer around. What do I do?

You no longer need to have the physical official documentation to evidence that you are the registered proprietor of land or property, given that the Land Registry have everything they need in a digital format.

I am buying a new build house in Maulden benefiting from help to buy. The sellers would not reduce the amount so I negotiated five thousand pounds worth of fixtures and fittings instead. The property agent told me not to tell my lawyer about this extras as it would adversely affect my loan with the lender. Should I keep quiet?.

All lenders require a Disclosure of Incentives Form from the builder 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.

Yesterday I discovered that there is a flying freehold issue on a property I put an offer in last month in what was supposed to be a simple, no chain conveyancing. Maulden is the location of the property. What do you suggest?

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

We are 3 weeks into a leasehold purchase having been referred to conveyancers by the high street agent to execute conveyancing in Maulden. I am not happy. Can you you assist me in finding new conveyancers?

They would need to be really bad to suggest replacing them. Has the mortgage offer been issued? In the event that it has you must advise them of the new solicitor and get the mortgage documents are re-issued. The solicitor ideally needs to be on the lenders approved list to avoid supplemental fees and delays. So that should be your starting point. The find a solicitor tool can assist you in finding a lender approved lawyer for your conveyancing in Maulden