Free national legal service for first time homeowners with Yorkshire Building Society

The Society has set up a scheme with solicitors throughout the UK who will complete the legal work connected with buying a house and send the bill directly to the Society for payment. This new service will take away another 'hassle' that usually faces first time buyers and ensures that they are linked up with a firm who specialise in home conveyancing.

This special arrangement is in addition to all the other benefits Yorkshire offers first time buyers, including 100% loans without any hefty fees, free accident sickness and unemployment insurance for the first six months and payment flexibility, which allows penalty free overpayments, underpayments and payment holidays. Full details of Yorkshire's first time buyer mortgages are shown in the attached Appendix.

Tanya Mills, spokesperson for Yorkshire Building Society said "This latest development in our first time buyer offering is the result of extensive research completed last year. We spoke to groups of recent first time buyers and potential first time buyers who told us they were concerned about the long list of things they had to do when deciding to get onto the housing ladder. Helping them to find a solicitor, and paying the fees, knocks another task off the list and should be a great help with the budget."

First time buyers who prefer to instruct their own solicitor will be given £250 towards the cost of the legal work and all borrowers will be responsible for the associated legal costs such as search fees and stamp duty.

All Yorkshire Building Society's 131 branches across the UK have fully qualified Mortgage Advisers who can offer advice, support and guidance to anyone looking for a mortgage. For anyone thinking of taking their first step on the property ladder the Society also offers a free, independent guide, which provides details and advice for each step of the house buying process.

The Yorkshire's website - www.ybs.co.uk - is fully interactive and mortgage applications can be processed in this way.

Customers who would like more information about Yorkshire Building Society mortgages or who want details of their nearest branch can call 0845 1200 100.