It used to be that when a prospective homebuyer wanted to purchase a home they could use the solicitor of their choosing for the conveyance. In recent months this practice has all but been called to a halt because lenders are now ‘dictating’ which solicitors can and can’t be used in a conveyance.
Some consumers are really out of sorts with this news as they have been using the same family solicitor for years on end now to be told that the lender doesn’t approve this particular solicitor. The buyer (or seller) is then forced to choose a solicitor from the approved list provided by the lender. As well, each lender has its own approved list so that you solicitor may very well be on some other lender’s list, but that may not be the lender you have been approved with for the loan.
The Council of Mortgage Lenders cites fraud as one of their main reasons for narrowing the list of solicitors they will work for. The council claims that lenders have lost a good bit of money in the past few years due to fraudulent acts on the part of solicitors. This gives some consumers cause to wonder if this is truly the case, how does the UK allow those solicitors to stay in operation? Some are claiming that lenders have hand selected a few solicitors of their ‘liking’ – a form of nepotism.
There does not appear to be any disputes in this regard having been filed with the courts to date, but there is growing consternation amongst consumers who are being literally forced to work with a conveyance solicitor they are just not comfortable with. The Law Society is receiving complaints daily from firms who have been removed from lists which means it is probably only a matter of time before some class action is brought before the UK high courts.
