My partner and I are hoping to buy a house in Witham and are in fact using a Witham conveyancing firm. Within the last couple of days our solicitor has forwarded the sale agreement to be signed with a detailed report with a view to exchanging next week. have this evening contacted us to inform me that there is now an issue as our Witham conveyancer is not on their conveyancing panel. Please explain?

When purchasing a property with mortgage finance it is conventional for the purchasers' solicitors 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 lender and see if they can apply for membership of their conveyancing panel, but if that is not viable they will instruct their own lawyers to represent them. You are not legally obliged to appoint a law firm on the bank's conveyancing panel and you may continue to use your own Witham solicitors, in which case it will likely add costs, and it will likely delay the transaction as you have another set of people involved.

I'm purchasing a new build house in Witham benefiting from help to buy. The developers refused to reduce the amount so I negotiated £7000 of additionals instead. The sale representative told me not inform my conveyancer about the side-deal as it would put at risk my loan with the bank. Is this normal?.

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.

I decided to have a survey carried out on a house in Witham ahead of retaining solicitors. I have been told that there is a flying freehold aspect to the property. My surveyor advised that some mortgage companies may refuse to give a mortgage on such a home.

It varies from the lender to lender. HSBC has different instructions from Nationwide. Should you wish to telephone us we can check via the relevant bank. If you lender is happy to lend one our lawyers can assist as they are used to dealing with flying freeholds in Witham. Conveyancing can be more complicated and therefore you should check with your conveyancing solicitor in Witham to see if the conveyancing costs will increase in light of this.

As co-executor for the will of my father I am selling a property in Swansea but reside in Witham. My lawyer (approximately 200 miles awayrequires that I execute a stat dec ahead of the transaction finalising. Could you suggest a conveyancing practitioner in Witham who can attest this legal document for me?

Technically speaking you are unlikely to need to have the documents witnessed by a conveyancing solicitor. Normally any notary public or qualified solicitor will be fine regardless of whether they are Witham based

Leasehold Conveyancing in Witham - A selection of Queries before Purchasing

Is the freehold owned jointly by the tenants? The prefered form of lease structure is a share of the freehold. In this arrangement the lessees benefit from being in charge if their destiny and even though a managing agent is often retained where the building is bigger than a house conversion, the managing agent employed by the leaseholders.