I am looking for value for money property lawyer. Do I opt for a national conveyancer or a family Barnehurst conveyancing lawyer?

Barnehurst is a special area, where local insight helps. The relaxed pace of life is great – just not for your house move. The property lawyers that we endorse providing vast Barnehurst insight with a positive, hands-onattitude that ensures everything runs smoothly. It is a definite plus if they benefit from long term connections with mortgage brokers, search providers, surveyors and other Barnehurst conveyancing practices

When it comes to lenders such as Leeds Building Society, do Barnehurst conveyancing practitioners incur a fee to be on the conveyancing panel?

We are unaware of any mortgage company fees to be on their list of approved firms, although some do levy an administration fee to deal with the processing of the conveyancing panel submission.

is it true that all Barnehurst solicitor firms on the Aldermore conveyancing panel are overseen by the SRA?

As a firm of solicitors, in order to be on the Aldermore conveyancing panel they would need to be regulated by the Solicitors Regulatory Authority. The majority of mortgage companies do permit licenced conveyancers on their panel and in that case the firms would be governed by the Council of Licensed Conveyancers.

After much negotiation I have agreed a price on an apartment in Barnehurst. My mortgage broker pressured me to appoint their lawyer. I paid an on account payment of £225. Not long after, the property lawyer called me sheepishly admitting that they were not on the Lloyds 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 Lloyds 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.

Various online forums that I have come across warn that are a common reason for stalling in Barnehurst house deals. Is there any truth in this?

The Council of Property Search Organisations (CoPSO) published findings of research by MoveWithUs that conveyancing searches do not figure amongst the most frequent causes of delays during the legal transfer of property. Local searches are unlikely to be the root cause of holding up conveyancing in Barnehurst.

The deeds to my house are lost. The solicitors who did the conveyancing in Barnehurst 10 years ago are no longer around. What do I do?

Gone are the days when you need to hold title deeds to evidence that you are the owner of your registered land or premises, given that the Land Registry have everything they need in a digital format.

My conveyancer in Barnehurst is asking me for ID documents saying that this is part of his obligations as a conveyancer on the lender Solicitor panel. Am I being spun a yarn?

Due to Money Laundering Regulations your conveyancing lawyer is duty bound to confirm positively your identification when entering into a business relationship with you. It is a criminal offence if your lawyer not do this. If you do not provide ID early in the transaction the solicitor must refuse to act for you. It’s unlikely a lawyer will turn you away if you come to the first meeting without relevant ID but you will have to produce it at some point so you might as well bring it with you to the initial meeting so the lawyer can tick the ID verification box and start sorting out the conveyancing straight away. If you are getting a mortgage, your lawyer also has to check ID documents to satisfy the lender. This is not unique to conveyancing in Barnehurst