I'm in the process of porting my current residential mortgage to a BTL Barclays Direct mortgage. I was told by my financial advisor that I need a conveyancer for this. I spoke to my former St Neots conveyancing solicitor who dealt with the legals when I initially purchased the house. The fee calculation e-mailed to me of £550 has surprised me as its a refinance than a sale or purchase.

The quote is slightly on the high side. Where you are willing to invest time contrasting quotes you might reduce the fees slightly by perhaps a hundred pounds. That being said, providing that you were content with the legal work the firm offered you maylive to regret choosing an an unknown solicitor. Don't forget to check that the solicitor can represent Barclays Direct. You can make use of our search tool to get a quote a St Neots conveyancing firm on the Barclays Direct member panel, which can often include conveyancing solicitors in St Neots.

I am buying a property mortgage free in St Neots. I have resided for the last 15 years in St Neots. Conveyancing searches are exorbitant. As I have knowledge of the area and road very well should I not bother getting the solicitor to do all the conveyancing searches?

Provided that you do not need a home loan, then all but one or two of the St Neots conveyancing searches are non-obligatory. Your lawyer will try and sway you, no-doubt strongly, that you should have searches done, but she has a professional duty to do this. One thing to bear in mind; if you are intend to dispose of the house one day, it may be of importance to your prospective purchaser what the searches determine. On occasion premises with no practical issues can still throw up unpredicted search results. A good conveyancing solicitor in St Neots should provide you some helpful advice in this regard.

I have a 4 bedroom Victorian property in St Neots. Conveyancing solicitor acted for me and The Royal Bank of Scotland. I did a free Land Registry search last week and there are a couple of entries: one for freehold, another for leasehold under the exact same address. I thought I was buying a freehold how can I check?

You need to review the Freehold register you have again and check the Charges Register as there may be mention of a lease. The best way to be sure that you are also the registered owner of the leasehold and freehold title as well is to check (£3). It is not completely unheard of in St Neots and other locations in the country and poses no real issues for owners other than when they mortgage they have to account for both freehold and leasehold interests when dealing with lenders. You can also question the situation with your conveyancing solicitor who conducted the work.

I'm buying a new build house in St Neots benefiting from help to buy. The sellers refused to budge the amount so I negotiated 6k of extras instead. The estate agent told me not to tell my lawyer about this side-deal as it would impact my loan with Nationwide Building Society. Do I keep my lawyer in the dark?.

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.

Am I right to be suspicious by estate agents that I am dealing with are recommending an internet conveyancing firm rather than a High Street St Neots conveyancing company?

As with many professional services, often input from relatives can be worth their weight in gold. But there are many parties with a keen interest in a conveyancing transaction; estate agents, financial adviser and banks might all suggest solicitors to use. Sometimes the solicitors might be known to one of the organisations as being good in their field, but sometimes there is an underlying commercial relationship behind the endorsement. You are at liberty to select your preferred lawyer. Don't forget that some banks have an approved list of law firms you are obliged to use for the lender related work in your home move.