Natwest remortgage nightmare!

ixedoc

I have come to the end of my discounted period with Santander and went through london and country to remortgage the property. I was offered fixed rate of 2.49 for 3 year. 995£ cost of the mortgage. On the mortgage offer letter it stated that the standard conveyancing to be paid by Natwest. Natwest have appointed Gordon property solicitors to act on their behalf. But it seems I have to keep pushing their solicitors to get a move on. 4 weeks after the offer letter the solicitors wrote to me telling they need to get title deed for the property that will cost me £30. I did question them as to why they are asking me as they are supposed to be paid by Natwest. 4 weeks on and nothing has moved forward and the solicitors want photo I'd and utility bills for money laundering purposes. I had already given all these to Natwest when I applied for the mortgage in the first place. Now they have sent me another bill For £ 149/- for consent for entries fee. This has been dragging from July and I have reached the end of my tether. The bank puts the ball in the solicitors court and vice versa and nothing seems to be moving forward.
Please advise as to how would be the best way forward.

suse*

Do you have any paperwork showing natwest are going to pay for the solicitor? When I remortaged I had to pay fees and valuation fees. The bank I went with offered to recommend a solicitor which was the same one as you, but that didn't mean they were going to pay for that as well.

You will end up having to send the other documents and proof as they are acting on your behalf and they have to get the information from you to compily with the regulations. I would expect a bigger bill by the end as depending how long you've had your house for you might need new searches and things as well unless they can accept copies from when you bought it if they don't think they are out of date.

If your paper work with natwest shows it does include the solicitor costs as well as the valuation and mortgage setup fee then I'd get on the phone to them to ask them to resolve the bills on your behalf but you'll still need to send through the id etc they are asking for. If it doesn't say they will pay then you need to contact gordens and get a quote redone to understand just how much that side will cost you and pay what they have done so far at least. They were a good deal so I'm not sure if you move companies at this point it will help you as things like searches etc will cost the same anyway whoever you use.

Thrugelmir

ixedoc wrote: »

On the mortgage offer letter it stated that the standard conveyancing to be paid by Natwest.

Additional charges will be borne by yourself.

Is the property leasehold?

GoneWithTheWindFabulous

I wasn't sure how much I would incur, the reason I changed was when I received a letter requesting £234, also would have needed to pay £25 for surplus money to be transferred to me and they hadn't even got going with the work yet.

Hope you are able to get an estimate

They should send you a list of potential charges + VAT

ixedoc

The solicitors are acting on behalf of the lender and on my documentation from Natwest it clearly states valueation and standard solicitors fees to be paid by Natwest.

ixedoc

Sorry the property is a leasehold apartment.

Thrugelmir

ixedoc wrote: »

Sorry the property is a leasehold apartment.

There will be additional charges to bear outside the scope of the mortgage offer then.

Delays may well be caused by the slowness of response of the managing agents to any enquiries. Pretty normal for the territory.

ixedoc

Thanku for all the advice.

kingstreet

Each link in the chain of a financial transaction has to follow the money laundering procedures, so your having supplied ID/PoA to NatWest does not mean the solicitor won't ask for the same thing.

Going the "free legals" route is always fraught with danger as the firms employed are the cheapest conveyancing warehouses the lenders can find. A leasehold property sees additional charges the lender will not pay. These should have been set out in written form at the outset of the transaction.

For future readers, choose the cashback and own solicitor option, rather than free legals. This enables you to keep control over the transaction.

Dave_Ham

Echo above, the poor levels of service and increased additional costs seems to have exploded in the last few months.


Many of these warehouses appear to have got even slower recently...