C&G approved solicitors

sexysam

My daughters purchasing house. Instructed our family solicitor to carry out work.Explained that it would be mainly cash and that we would get a £40000 mortgage through Lloyds/Halifax.

Went to Lloyds, completed application forms. Forms sent of to C&G, two days later text me to say valuer is going following day to value house. C&G came back to me says they are willing to let us have mortgage, but are nor prepared to deal with my solicitor because he is not an approved by C&G. I was told to get another solicitor if I wanted to proceed with mortgage.

The problem is that my solicitor has basically done 80% of the paperwork and was ready to exchange contract, but C&G will not deal with him to complete the matter.

I have now have two choices:
1. To go and get a C&G approved solicitor and pay my solicitor for his work and then pay again for a new solicitor or:
2.Go somewhere else to get a mortgage ( and loose out £340 value fee) and start all over agian.

Meanwhile seller says he is not prepared to wait another 4-6 weeks and threatning to sell to someone else.

I am confused and have absoloutely no idea what to do do. This is our first time for mortgage

What shall we do?

herbiesjp

Can your solicitor ask to go on to the approved panel?

Mrs_Bumble

Is your solicitor a sole trader? As it is common practices for lender's to not have sole trader's on the panel as they are not covered by their fraud insurance then. In these cases sole practioners sometimes work in association with other practices that in effect sign off their work and a payment structure is worked out between the two.

If the above is the case an your solicitor is a sole trader speak to them about this and C&G to see if they would be happy with this.

luckyfool

Ask your solicitor if he has another firm he works with that can go down as the official firm for the lender. He can then forward all his paperwork across to them, C&G send them the offer, and it completes with them as the official firm. This should not cost you too much more in money or time.

If he doesn't then speak to a new firm and ask what they would charge if they get all the documents from another solicitor that has already done 80% of the work. You can get your current firm to forward all the paperwork done to date to your new solicitor and they have to do it. Of course they are entitled to charge for the work done to date as well. The first option will be faster as they will have a relationship with the other firm.

This is a huge problem just now as many of the main lenders have dramatically culled their solicitors panel as they have been forced to do so by their Legal Liability Insurers. These insurers have refused to provide them with insurance cover for legal fraud/negligence if the solicitor has less than 2 partners. This is a relatively recent thing and is due to the amount of mortgage and solicitor fraund uncovered in the last couple of years which has cost lenders and by extension their insurers hundreds of millions. Firms with 2+ partners are viewed as being at lower risk to this type of fraud.

Treacle44

Hi I just wondered what's happened with this as this is now happening with us, I'm so annoyed. Our solicitor has done practically everything, but she is a sole practitioner.

Mrs_Bumble

Same advice above would apply to your solicitor, I would be surprised if she is surprised because it has been all over the industry news about lenders dropping sole practitioners from their panels. Does she work alongside anyone that can complete the work that she has started, its not like they have to start from scratch. I don't see how she can tell you hand on heart that she wouldn't have expected this.