I plan on acquiring a ground floor flat in Todmorden. My property lawyer is not on the mortgage company solicitor panel. Can I still use my Todmorden conveyancing solicitor notwithstanding that they are not on the bank panel of approved conveyancing solicitors?

Your options include

• Proceed with your existing Todmorden conveyancing practitioner but your mortgage company will no doubt use a property lawyer from their approved list. This will result in additional cost and likely frustration.
• Choose a fresh conveyancing practitioner to act in the purchase, ensuring that they are on the mortgage company conveyancing panel.
• Convince your conveyancer to do everything possible to get accepted on the lender’s panel of solicitors

At what point will exchange of contracts occur in residential conveyancing in Todmorden and am I required to be at the lawyers branch?

Where you are near to our conveyancing solicitors in Todmorden you are invited in to sign the paperwork. However, the firms we work with provide a countrywide conveyancing service and give as equally comprehensive and professional a job for you when dealing with you electronically. The signing of the property agreement is not when everything is set in stone. A signed contract is just a prerequisite for the conveyancer to exchange contracts at the appropriate time, which is ordinarily shortly after signing. The procedure is is usually a five minute process, although where a lengthy "chain" is involved, since the process requires the relevant party's solicitor (not necessarily a conveyancing solicitor in Todmorden)to be in the office at the appropriate time.

I am the only beneficiary of my late father’s will and I have everything in my name alone, including the house in Todmorden. Conveyancing formalities meant that the Land Registry date was in December. I now wish to sell up. I do know about the CML 6 month 'rule', meaning my property ownership could be considered the same way as if I'd bought the property in December. Do I have to wait half a year to sell?

The Council of Mortgage Lenders’ handbook obliges conveyancers to: "report to us immediately if the owner or registered proprietor has been registered for less than six months." Technically you could be impacted by that. How practical a view banks take of it, depend on the lender as this obligation chiefly exists to capture subsales or the quick reselling of property.

We were going to get a OIP from Barclays this week so we can work out what to offer on a property we like as otherwise we only have online calculators to go by (which aren't taking into account credit checks etc). Do Barclays recommend any Todmorden solicitors on the Barclays conveyancing panel, or is it better to go independently?

You will need to appoint Todmorden solicitors independently although you'll need to choose one on the Barclays conveyancing panel. The solicitor represents both you and Barclays through the process.

Yorkshire BS have agreed my mortgage in principle, my bid on a flat in Todmorden has been accepted, what are the next steps?

Your estate agent will need to know who your solicitors are (ensure that the lawyers are on the bank’s panel). Call up Yorkshire BS or your broker and finish off any outstanding forms. Yorkshire BS will appoint a valuer who will get in touch with the estate agent or owners to arrange an appointment. Once carried out (assuming no problems) it takes approximately a week to receive the mortgage offer. Yorkshire BS will issue the offer to you and your lawyers. The legal work will then take it’s course according the nature and complexity of the conveyancing in Todmorden.

I am buying my first flat in Todmorden with a loan from Lloyds TSB Bank. The sellers would not move on the amount so I negotiated five thousand pounds worth of fixtures and fittings instead. The estate agent suggested that I not disclose to my solicitor about this 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.

Myself and my husband have recently had an offer agreed on a property and had meeting on Monday with the Post Office for the mortgage. They advised me that when it comes to appointing a conveyancer that unless they are on their approved panel of conveyancers then we will be subject to an an extra fee of £250+. This is is due to the fact that they would then have to instruct a conveyancer to act for them in addition to the one we appoint on our behalf and we are liable for their fees. I have requested the Post Office to provide me with a list so I can obtain quotes only from their approved lawyers but was told they dont have such a list to hand over. What would be the best way of going about this?

You can enquire of the Post Office what their criteria for joining their panel is for a conveyancer.Thereafter ask the conveyancer of your choice whether they fit that criteria and have they acted on mortgages for the Post Office historically. Where the answer to those is yes, then just double check with the Post Office. Alternatively please make use of our search tool and we should be able to find you a solicitor in Todmorden on the panel for the Post Office.