Using Nationwide BS Conveyancers and the "process"

highguyuk

I'm just a little confused.

Usually in the process, it's make an offer on house and then appoint solicitors. But what happens if you want to use your mortgage providers solicitors, as Nationwide offer free for FTBs?

Make an offer, offer accepted, then sort your mortgage out, wait for approval, get conveyancers, then do the searches etc...as surely you can't start using their conveyancers until the mortgage is approved?

thelem

You give the details of the house to Nationwide, and they appoint the solicitors for you. It does mean there will be a few days between your offer being accepted and being able to tell the vendor who your solictors are.

Having used the free Nationwide solicitors however, I'd recommend taking the cashback instead and finding your own.

bowlhead99

You don't need a conveyancer (a solicitor whose job it is to convey the property from the old owners to the new owners) until you have an offer in on the property and an application in for the mortgage (i.e. for that specific house that you want the mortgage company to lend on).

So the timing with a 'bundled' solicitor/valuation product like Nationwide, works just fine. We completed last month using that model.

First, get a decision in principle on your mortgage with Nationwide to be comfortable that they should be willing to lend that amount of money at that loan to value subject to you proving your income and the property valation standing up
Make the offer on a specific house
Seller accepts the offer
Put your full application in to Nationwide
Nationwide engage the solicitors and instruct valuation (or homebuyers report if you pay extra)and put you in touch with a full survey company if you want one of those.
You tell the estate agents who your solicitors are and solicitors start talking to each other. You give solicitors some front money for their out of pocket expenses on the searches.
Overlapping : The mortgage formal offer comes back, results of searches come back, full survey results come back (if you have one), your solicitor asks some questions back and forth.

The seller stops marketing the property when they can see you've got your formal mortgage offer after valuation, or perhaps when you've got your survey booked, or perhaps earlier or later depending how generous/ paranoid they are.

There are some comments on the process and whether its a good deal or not, on the thread you were involved in at https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4523869

As mentioned there, there are more solicitor costs on top of the 'bundled basic conveyancing'. Also on the valuation side the price of upgrading to a homebuyer report or indeed a full survey will depend on the value of the place you're buying and therefore the likely effort and risk of doing it - Nationwide have a table of prices for different values.

highguyuk

But, lets say your mortgage isn't approved, what do you do then as you're stuck with NWs conveyancers.

vivster

When I sold my flat, my buyer used the Nationwide, free conveyancer service.

I can't be certain, but I got the impression that the solicitors didn't begin lodging queries with my solicitors until the survey had been done and the buyer had his mortgage offer.

Offer accepted on August 25. Solicitors only began talking to each other in late October. Exchanged early December, completed just before Christmas.

There was no chain as he was a FTB and we were going into rented, but it was a shared ownership sale, which could have complicated things, as the HA was involved as a slow third party.

Anyway, I remember thinking his solicitors were awful. They were incredibly slow and kept lodging queries for things which had been answered. This could have been common or garden frustration on my part, though.

highguyuk

The property we are thinking towards purchasing has the "ability" to be a simple purchase. No onwards chain, empty property, we're FTBs etc.

Therefore, I'm hoping because of this I can save cash and use the in-house providers.

However from reports on here and general consensus, I think it maybe the only time I do as so as if we're involved in a chain or a more complicated purchase, it may be best to do it with a chosen solicitor.