Why use your own solicitor?
When you re-mortgage your home, your new Lender will probably ask you if you want to use their in-house Solicitor or whether you want to use your own family Solicitor. Although a Lender may offer a ‘special deal’ or offer ‘free legal fees’ you must bear in mind that the chosen Solicitors will be acting for the Lender and not for you. This means that the Solicitors may not be situated in your area and may take extra time in processing the mortgage.
At Wright Hassall we will be acting for you and will have your best interests in mind. We can make the process as quick and painless for you as possible (especially if we have acted in the house purchase or a previous re-mortgage).
Checking your existing mortgage terms
You should ensure that you are fully aware of any penalties payable to your existing Lender. Most existing Lender’s charge a ‘deeds release’ and ‘administration’ fees when you redeem your mortgage. We would always suggest you approach your existing Lender for a redemption statement, which will detail these fees. Making these early checks will ensure you have sufficient funds to pay off your existing mortgage and leave you with any surplus you have requested. It will also enable us to collect any shortfall from you if you are reducing your mortgage.
Your new mortgage offer
Contact us at the earliest possible opportunity especially if you are looking to complete your re-mortgage quickly. We can then commence the work required by your new Lender including obtaining your title deeds from your exiting Lender and/or a copy of your deeds from the Land Registry. Most mortgage Lenders do not insist upon up to date local searches being obtained so this will make the process much quicker.
Your new Lender will produce a ‘mortgage offer’ once they have undertaken all of their checks. This offer will contain conditions that we will need to comply with before they will release the funds to us. These conditions will usually ask you to provide details of your buildings insurance policy for your Property so that we can check to ensure they meet the new Lender’s requirements. We will discuss these conditions with you and go through the mortgage paperwork with you.
Completing the transaction
We then prepare a report to the new Lender and, provided all mortgage conditions have been met, we can agree a completion date with you. On the completion day, we will receive the new mortgage from your new Lender and pay off your existing mortgage with your existing Lender and send to you any surplus. We will then deal with registration formalities at the Land Registry who change your title deeds to reflect the change of Lender.
These notes are intended only as a brief outline of the various stages of the transaction. Contact us for more information on how we can help you.
