Risks (vs. benefits) of going ahead with developer's recommended solicitor and mortgage advisor

Gogo82

Hi,

We have reserved a house with Bellway and have been asked whether we want to use their solicitor (couple of local companies to choose from) and mortgage advisor (New Homes).

We are new in town and relatively new in the UK and don't have a trusted solicitor. We definitely do need a mortgage advisor due to my husband's short residency in the country and the fact that his earnings come from abroad. So... going ahead with Bellway recommended companies sounds like less headache and a quicker and more fluent transaction.

But what are the risks of doing that? Snagging problems are bound to arise and we intend to be very assertive on that one -- would it be good to have our own solicitor on hand, just in case, or am I overly suspicious?

In more general terms, would this be a good moment to pick a solicitor more generally, so that we can have their name and phone number on hand for all other legal matters that may arise in the future?

Many thanks for your advice,

Browntoa

Always use your own rather than developers "Friendly" ones

If their mortgage advisor can find a deal so can an independent one.

Angry_kittens

My advice would be to find a good solicitor by yourself, if Bellway is shoving a lot of work their way, they may not always act 100% in your best interests.

I would advise against finding 1 solicitor who does everything - jack of all trades master of none. Unless you mean a good firm who have a decent conveyancing department, decent family law department etc.

First and foremost though you want a good conveyancing lawyer for your house purchase, I chose mine based on family recommendation.

itmakessense

Definitely use your own lawyer!!
Pick a lawyer who doesn't back hand the agent and then you know all of your funds are being used to fund a full and proper investigation into your property. If you are swayed away from a solicitor by the agent or developer then use the lawyer they are trying to steer you away from. They don't like "thorough and picky " lawyers especially with a "New Build" because it holds up their transaction and their cash in the bank. The lawyer you employ is acting in your best interest, you need to remember that as they are the only one in all of the transactions involved who actually care about you! You need someone who can sniff out any faults with the build, land, adopted roads etc etc
I use the same firm and lawyer (Jane at Sussex Law Brighton) every time just because she is "Picky" and really brilliant and knowledgeable.
Not sure if she will still take on "New builds" though due to the nature of the work and lack of response to inquiries from developers solicitors. Always deal with their lawyer and not the developer themselves.

eddddy

As others say...

Bellway's recommended solicitors are likely to get dozens (maybe hundreds) of conveyancing jobs resulting from referrals from Bellway.

They'll probably only ever get one conveyancing job from you.

So if there is an 'issue', they may be more tempted to keep Bellway happy, than to keep you happy.


Solicitors won't be involved in snagging problems. If you want professional assistance with that, you could arrange a 'Snagging Survey' from a surveyor.

G_M

going ahead with developer's recommended solicitor and mortgage advisor

Risks? many.


Benefits? None.

sheepy21

We used the broker and solicitor, I had no plan to in the beginning even with the promos of £1000 off. But, after researching the solicitor I was happy with them and our sol turned out to be absolutely brilliant! I haven’t come across anyone that’s had as good a experience as we had with our sol.
As for broker, I’d already researched extensively what mortgage we wanted, I told the broker and they basically just did the application for us. It was all straight forward, broker charged us nothing and the 1k off the house covered most of the solicitor cost