Solicitors acting on a remortgage with associated lease extension - quality of service

ripofflondon

Hi all

Hope this is in the right part of the forum, feel free to point me towards a more appropriate bit if you think appropriate.

The repayment element of the Halifax mortgage on my residential property came to an end in Nov 23 and that would have been the mortgage repaid had I not also borrowed c. £66K on interest-only in 2013 to raise some equity for a BTL purchase.  When the repayment element came to an end in Nov 23, Halifax wanted the interest-only balance repaying too (and wouldn't allow me to remain on interest-only indefinitely).  So, I needed to remortgage and got a deal lined up with another lendor whereupon this situation ie me needing a lease extension arose because I found I couldn't remortgage with the number of years remaining on the lease; you may recall that I posted on this at the time earlier this year -  https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6516080/remortgage-stalled-due-to-insufficient-time-left-on-a-99-year-lease-how-to-extend-the-lease

This firm of solicitors was instructed to handle the legals for this remortgage and were further instructed to do the lease extension that it transpired was necessary for this remortgage to proceed - I also posted re another / earlier facet of this issue - https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6531327/lease-extension-quote-from-solicitors-opinions-please

Following some animated discussion between the solicitors and myself (and input from forum-ites!) I capitulated and, on 10 June, paid the £1152.  Their response that day:  

Hi Mark

Many thanks for this will let you know once completed.

Thanks

Since then - complete radio silence until I got recently contacted by Halifax complaining that the interest-only portion of my mortgage with them had expired and hasn’t been repaid following the repayment bit coming to an end at the end of last year (though they have continued to collect the monthly payments on the interest-only balance).

I contacted the solicitors saying that I'd heard from Halifax and pointing out that I had assumed that the above sequence of events ie the lease extension and its registration with the Land Registry would have continued to run and that the remortgage would have duly proceeded in the meantime since 10 June, but that Halifax were making blood-curdling threats of sending debt collectors after me if this is not resolved, so it obviously has not, so asked them to advise where we are.  

The response on 2 Sep, from the line manager of the fee-earner who'd been handling the lease extension: 

We can certainly continue with the Remortgage, now the Lease Extension has been completed.  Has the mortgage offer now been produced?

My reply to him: 

Has the lease extension been completed?  I don’t know – I haven’t heard anything either way since 10 June and doubt very much that I would have heard from yourselves today had it not been for me making contact to chase progress. The remortgage lendors were at the point of being ready to issue a mortgage offer but couldn’t until the lease extension had been completed. Furthermore their offer has expired by now in any case. 

Him to me:

The Lease Extension has completed but we still await the Land Registry to process the application.

I will ask my colleagues in the Post Completion Department to ask the Land Registry to expedite the application, but usually it takes a Mortgage Offer in order for Land Registry to do so.

Me to him:

I think I’d have expected some sort of progress report once your firm had completed what they needed to do from their end for the lease extension.  How long ago was this? 

Surely if your firm were also acting for my remortgage with (new lendor) then I would have expected you to make the (new lendor), as well as me, aware that the lease extension had completed so that (new lendor) could then proceed to issue a mortgage offer, and that (new lendor) needed to do this for the Land Registry?  Moreover your firm doesn’t get paid for the legal work associated with my remortgage unless this remortgage goes ahead, so one would think that it would have been in your firm’s financial interests to let me know what was going on, thereby progressing the matter. 

I’ve been waiting in the belief that all these things would have been proceeding behind the scenes and that (new lendor) and your firm would have been communicating this to Halifax – but you haven’t.  I spoke to Halifax yesterday and they have given me until the end of November.  The (new lendor) remortgage has died a death after all this time in any case but if I had been kept advised of what was happening then I could have looked at remortgaging with a different lender and we would not now be in this position.

I also don’t understand the point about the Land Registry requiring a Mortgage Offer in order to expedite the registration of a lease extension.  What would happen if Halifax agreed an extension to my interest-only mortgage term, or if I pay off the mortgage - both instances where no mortgage offer would be issued? 

Him to me:

The lease was dated on the 17th June.  We would not, as a matter of course, liaise with your old lender or new, confirming details of the Lease Extension. 

10 Sep - I received an Office Copy confirming that the Lease Extension had been registered at the Land Registry.  

My question (if you are still reading by this point!) - bearing in mind the above and even if they weren't responsible for the glacial speed of the Land Registry, am I unreasonable to believe that these solicitors should have let me - and the lendors for the remortgage, which they were also handling the legals for - know when they had completed the Lease extension on 17 June, so that the new lendors could then proceed to issue a remortgage offer?

Reading between the lines of the correspondence with his line manager - '(name of fee-earner) is unexpectedly out of the office' - the fee-earner who'd been handling my lease extension took his eyes off the ball and this looks to have had something to do with why he never informed me, or anyone else, that the lease extension had completed on 17 June or at all.  

Any thoughts gratefully received.

Cheers

Mark

tacpot12

I agree that they should have told you when their work on the lease extension was done, but given that the your fee agreement was that you would only pay all the costs when the remortgage was complete, then you didn't really need to know this, providing everything went ok. It didn't go ok, so not informing you seems to be bad practice on their part. 

If you intend to sue them for the effect of delaying the the remortgage, you probably need to take legal advice from a different solicitor.