Solicitor is not on Mortgage providers solicitor - what can I do?

Purple_jones

Hi

I'm a first time buyer having real problems with Santander. I won't go into how awful they have been since I started this whole application but the latest problem is this:

I instructed a solicitor back when my offer on the house was accepted. 3 months down the line after searches etc have been conducted, Santander are now saying I cannot proceed with this solicitor as they are not registered on the Santander panel.

They have said I could ask another solicitor to act on our behalf to accept and send documents to Santander and deal with the finances. Trouble is no solicitor seems willing o do this.

The only other option, or so they say, is to instruct a solicitor and start the whole process again (and spend all the money I have already spent again).

If I have to cover Santanders legal fees I'm not really sure how they can dictate who we use.

Any advice about what we can do would be gratefully received.

Help!

lee111s

If you change solicitor then they may be able to request the information the other solicitor has, although I suspect you're still going to ened to pay the original solicitor.

The other option is to change lender.

ACG

You should always ensure your choice of solicitor is on the lenders panel before asking them to start anything.

To be honest I would say do not instruct solicitors to do anything until you have your mortgage offer - if anything goes wrong you could find yourself hundreds of pounds out of pocket.

If the solicitor can not be added to santanders panel, then your options are as they have been given to you which isnt ideal but (and im not trying to big up my job here) these are some of the things that can happen when you do it yourself.

Thrugelmir

Purple_jones wrote: »

If I have to cover Santanders legal fees I'm not really sure how they can dictate who we use.

If you want any lender to advance a mortgage to you then you have to abide by their offer terms. Absolutely no point in getting upset about this. There's nothing knew in this requirement either.

The simple fact is that you wish to borrow thousands of the pounds. The lender therefore has the right to approve the conveyancer. As even solicitors commit fraud.

Yorkie1

The lender has the right to choose who acts for it in the transaction. Many conveyancers are on the panels for most lenders, but not all.

At what point in the process did you tell your conveyancer which lender you were using? If it was some time back, I'd be asking some very pointed questions of them as to why they didn't tell you then that they couldn't act for your lender.

I'd consider instructing another solicitor, and making a formal complaint to your current solicitor that you have incurred cost with them without being alerted that there would be a problem in completing the transaction with that solicitor.

You'll need to pay for searches undertaken by them, but in the complaint I'd be asking for them not to charge you for their own work because you should not be penalised by the need to instruct a second solicitor to take over the case - and pay twice for the same work.

Senior_Paper_Monitor

Abbey's solicitor panel is at times a real pain (not least because their handling of the regular renewal process often leads to temporary removals and they have a difficulty in processing new offices for m multi-office firms) but it can't be over ridden. Or, of course, it may simply be that they don't meet the lender's requirements (which in the case of Abbey includes maintaining the Law Society Quality Conveyancing mark) amongst the more normal standards on number of partners and PI cover.


Where solicitors are not on a lender's panel they often have arrangements with another firm to represent that lender - In which case the fee should be unchanged and they simply share it and the work - you simply advise the lender of the new appointment. Ask you solicitor if they have such an arrangement in place.


If they do not have such an arrangement then it will probably be necessary for you to select a new solicitor and the comments above concerning the transfer of searches above and the waiving of all/most fees will apply.