Lender Insisting on using their panel of solicitors

lea123e

Hi Everyone,

I'm just in the process of having an offer accepted on a house. My mortgage broker has found me the best mortgage deal for me, however the lender insists on you using one of a panel of their solicitors to do the conveyancing which wouldnt be a probelm but having been well-ish trained by MSE.com now i kind of begrudge paying the fees which are £1300 compared to a local quote I've had of £650!! :mad:
Seems like theres more than a bit of back scratching going on there!!

Has anyone else had the same issue? Any advice or ways around it at all? Any help as always, greatly appreciated

kingstreet

Have you got direct comparative quotes from each solicitor you could post here for us to have a look at them?

Some solicitors don't mention certain costs at the outset, despite them being payable.

We also need to know the purchase price of the property, newbuild, freehold or leasehold, or shared equity or shared ownership? Which mortgage lender?

Bluemeanie_2

Is it HSBC by any chance? I'm no expert so hopefully someone else will come along shortly, but from what I understand you can pay around £170 to use your own solicitor. Annoying in principle but still cheaper and least you know what is happening etc.

Yorkie1

Who is the lender? If other than HSBC, very few have restricted their panel of firms to the extent you seem to describe.

G_M

All lenders will insist that the legal work for the mortgage is done by a solicitor on their panel.

It almost always makes sense to use the same solicitor for your conveyancing since
a) there is duplication of work
b) 2 solicitors adds unecessary communication/liaison between them
c) it works out cheaper

Most lenders have pretty wide choice of solicitors - have you asked them for a list of their panel within, say, a 20 mile radius?

When comparing quotes, make sure the cheaper one does not have hidden extras that actually make it the same price as the expensive one. read more here.

Bluemeanie_2

G_M that is a fab link, thank you. I'll be using that in the future!

lea123e

Thank you for all of your responses and thanks very much for the link GM, very useful. I will be sure to get a full breakdown of the costs included as advised.

The lender is Abbey, the quotes from the solicitors were from all over the UK and ranged from £1300 to over £2000.

If the cost of using a local solicitor is really that much cheaper than the forced transaction with Abbey, the saving would probably mean that another lender who would allow this would worker out cheaper overall as I only plan to own the property for a few years.

Thanks again everyone

betmunch

Abbeys panel is pretty good, and as they restricted their panel so long ago most solicitors are either reregistered or have a friendly local solicitor handle Abbeys part of the conveyancing. you broker isnt Countrywide by any chance is it? this was a trick suggested by one of my old sales managers when I was there to get more CPL referals

Richard_Webster

Yes, Santander have kicked a number of practices off their panel but there are thousands still on it so I really can't see the issue. Simply get quotes from whoever you want but check they are on Santander's panel. Most of them will be.