My fiance and I are planning to purchase a house in Crossness and are in fact using a Crossness conveyancing firm. Within the past 48 hours our conveyancer has sent a preliminary report and documents to look through in anticipation of exchanging contracts shortly. Norwich and Peterborough Building Society have this morning contacted us to advise us that there is now an issue as our Crossness conveyancer is not on their conveyancing panel. Please explain?
If you are buying a property with the assistance of a mortgage it is normal for the purchasers' solicitors to also represent 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 solicitor 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 lawyers to represent them. You are not legally obliged to appoint a law firm on the bank's conveyancing panel as you are at liberty to use your preferred Crossness lawyers, in which case it will likely add costs, and it will likely delay the transaction as you have another set of people involved.
We expect to receive a DIP from Santander this week so we know how much we could potentially offer as otherwise we are dependent on web based calculators (which aren't taking into account credit checks etc). Do Santander recommend any Crossness solicitors on the Santander conveyancing panel, or is it better to find our own lawyer?
You will need to appoint Crossness solicitors independently although you'll need to choose one on the Santander conveyancing panel. The solicitor represents both you and Santander through the process.
After much negotiation I have agreed a price on an apartment in Crossness. My financial adviser suggested a conveyancing practitioner. I paid an upfront payment of £175. Soon after, the solicitor called me to say that they were not on the Aldermore conveyancing panel. Am I right in thinking that I should be due a refund?
You should be able to recover this from the law firm if they were not on the Aldermore panel. They should have asked at the outset which lender you were obtaining a mortgage with. An important lesson to readers of this site is to check that the lawyers are on the appropriate lender panel.
I had an offer accepted on an apartment in Crossness on 14/5/2026, valuation was booked 4 days later, received a clean bill of health. Property lawyer appointed, so the only thing outstanding was my mortgage offer. Having made daily calls to Lloyds and chasing them on my offer, I have now been told that my offer will not be issued unless the lawyer is on the Lloyds conveyancing panel. Are Lloyds entitled to hold back the Mortgage pending the lawyer being on the approved list?
Mortgage companies tend not to not issue an offer until they have details of a lawyer on their panel. It can take a few weeks for Lloyds to deal with your lawyer's application to be on the Lloyds conveyancing panel. There's no guarantee that your solicitor will be accepted.
A relative recommended that if I am buying in Crossness I should ask my conveyancer to carry out a Neighbourhood, Planning and Local Amenity Search. Can you explain what the purpose of this search is?
This is a search is usually quoted for as part of the standard Crossness conveyancing searches. It is not a small report of about 40 pages, listing and setting out significant information about Crossness around the property and the people living there. It includes an Aerial Photograph, Planning Applications, Land Use, Mobile Phone Masts, Rights of Way, the Crossness Housing Market, Council Tax Banding, the demographics of People living in the area, the dominant type of Housing, the Average House Prices, Crime details, Local Education with plans and statistics, Local Amenities and other useful information about Crossness.
I have todaydiscovered that Action Conveyancing have closed. They conducted my conveyancing in Crossness for a purchase of a freehold house 12 months ago. How can I establish that the property is in my name in the name of the former proprietor?
The easiest way to see if the premises is in your name, you can make a search of the land registry (£3.00). You can either do this yourself or ask a law firm to do this for you. If you are not registered you can seek help from one of a number of Crossness conveyancing specialists.
I am buying a new build house in Crossness with a loan from Birmingham Midshires. The builders would not reduce the price so I negotiated five thousand pounds worth of fixtures and fittings instead. The house builders rep suggested that I not disclose to my lawyer about this extras as it will put at risk my mortgage with the lender. Should I keep quiet?.
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 opted to have a survey completed on a house in Crossness ahead of retaining conveyancers. I have been told that there is a flying freehold aspect to the house. The surveyor has said that some lenders may refuse to issue a mortgage on this type of home.
It varies from the lender to lender. Bank of Scotland has different instructions from Nationwide. If you contact us we can check via the relevant mortgage company. If you lender is happy to lend one our lawyers can help as they are accustomed to dealing with flying freeholds in Crossness. Conveyancing will be smoother if you use a solicitor in Crossness especially if they regularly deal with such properties in Crossness.