Pam your friend MUST get a solicitor's advice - local and national regulations and laws are too much for people like us to fathom. I'd recommend Ozlen Ozergin for all property matters. She will make sense of it all and it really will be money well spent. If you ask 10 people on here or locally there, you will get ten different answers. You need a full and final answer for this so your friends can draw a line under the whole matter and get on with their lives.