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When purchasing a property with the benefit of a mortgage it is usual for the purchaser's 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 Accreditation Scheme. Your property lawyers should contact Paratus AMC and see if they can apply for membership of the Paratus AMC conveyancing panel, but if that is not viable Paratus AMC will instruct their own lawyers to represent them. You don't have to instruct a firm on the Paratus AMC conveyancing panel as you are at liberty to use your preferred lawyers, in which case it will likely add costs, and it may delay matters as you are adding another lawyer into the mix.

On the face of it your lawyer has done nothing wrong as it is established procedure for any occupier who is aged 17 or over to sign the necessary Consent Form, which is purely to state that any rights he has in the property are postponed and secondary to Paratus AMC .This is solely used to protect the Paratus AMC if the property were re-possessed so that in such circumstances, your son would be legally obliged to leave.

It does not impact your son’s right to inherit the apartment. Please note that if your son were to inherit and the mortgage in favour of Paratus AMC had not been discharged, he would be liable to take over the loan or pay it off, but other than that, there is nothing stopping him from keeping the property in accordance with your will or the rules of intestacy.

We are a listing service only for law firms wishing to communicate if they are on the Paratus AMC conveyancing panel or other lender panels. We do not charge referral fees to the any conveyancer that you subsequently appoint.

Assuming that you have an Estate Agent in the equation then inform them straight away so that they can let the sellers know that there may be a slight delay due to the problems encountered. Most sellers would be sympathetic and urge their lawyer to send a new set of papers to your new solicitors. You should appoint new lawyers that are on the Paratus AMC conveyancing panel and notify the lender. If you have paid over any money it will hopefully be held by the SRA as money in an intervened firm's bank accounts is transferred to the SRA. Then, the SRA or the intervention agent looks at the intervened firm's accounts to work out who the money belongs to. To claim your money you will need to contact the SRA. If the SRA cannot return money you are owed from the firm's bank accounts, or if they can only return part of the money, you can apply to the Compensation Fund for a grant. Your new solicitors should be in a position to help

There is generally no requirements by lenders for their firms to operate on a no-sale-no-fee basis. There a small number of lenders who operate a very restricted conveyancing panel managed by a third party company (often termed in the industry as a ‘gatekeeper’). That third party may impose certain conditions such as non-sale-no fee on the panel firms. If you require this as a condition of your conveyancing then you should check with the conveyancing firm that this is part of their service

Paratus AMC do not ordinarily instruct firms on their conveyancing panel to deal with such a matter. If they did require any legal work then you would need to ensure that such a lawyer was on the Paratus AMC list

Paratus AMC will need an independent valuation of the property. Your lawyer will not arrange this. Usually Paratus AMC will appoint their own surveyor to do this, and you will have to pay for it. Remember that this is a valuation for mortgage purposes and not a survey. You may wish to consider appointing your own surveyor to carry out a survey or prepare a home buyers report on the property. It is up to you to satisfy yourself that the property is structurally sound before you buy it. If the survey or report reveals that building work is needed, you should tell your solicitor. You may wish to renegotiate with the seller. or Your lawyer will not organise the survey but they may be able to put you in touch with a local one that they recommend. RICS offers a find a surveyor service (just google it) where you can search for a qualified surveyor by postcode. As you are getting a mortgage with Paratus AMC you could contact your them to see if they have a list of approved surveyors.