Once we have received our instructions to act for you (this normally comes from your financial adviser or mortgage adviser), you can expect to hear from us within 7 working days. We will write to both you and your financial adviser to acknowledge your instruction and send you our Terms of Business letter and "Remortgage" guide. At this stage we will tell you who will deal with your case, and they will become your contact at Goldsmith Williams throughout the transaction.
Our aim is to ensure that your Remortgage completes as soon as possible and there are some points we need to tell you about which will help us to achieve this for you.
In most cases, you will have been introduced to Goldsmith Williams through a third party such as your independent financial adviser or mortgage adviser. If this applies to your case, we will consider them to be the acting agent on your behalf and we will therefore accept instructions on your behalf from them to help process your case, e.g.,
- Any completion statement we send to your adviser is correct and approved and therefore we can complete that case on your behalf without having to get your specific agreement.
- They can advise us on any outstanding life or building insurance and whether the same is needed or not.
- Any information that we have on file can be disclosed to your adviser in order to assist in completing the case as soon as possible.
- We can rely on what the third party tells us in relation to helping us complete and that any recourse in the event of any dispute will therefore be directed against your adviser and not us.
If you do not wish us to discuss these matters with your adviser, please tell us at the earliest opportunity.
Until we have received your mortgage offer we are unable to report any further to you on your case. If you have any queries before your mortgage offer has been issued you should contact your financial adviser or mortgage adviser who should be able to help you. You'll find that we are just as keen as you are to complete your remortgage quickly, so whilst we are waiting for our copy of the mortgage offer to arrive we will:
- request the title deeds to your property
- carry out our local search facility
- carry out a land charges search
- apply for office copy entries
- obtain provisional redemption figures from your lender (this tells us the amount required to pay off your existing mortgage)
- check the title and obtain and check your identification
If the transaction falls through before we receive the offer, we will NOT charge you for the work we've done so far!
Once we receive our copy of your mortgage offer, we can start to communicate with your lender. Because in most cases we act for both you and your lender we must make sure that all the lenders conditions are adhered to before we can suggest a date for completion. If you are arranging your own buildings insurance or life insurance, please make sure that it meets the conditions of your new lender or this could delay completion. Lenders' conditions vary, but your mortgage offer will tell you exactly what your lender requires in order to complete the transaction.
Once we are entirely satisfied that all conditions have been met, we will write to both you and your financial adviser with a suggested completion date and forward any documentation to you that requires signature. Once you receive our report PLEASE READ ALL DOCUMENTS CAREFULLY before you sign them. In some circumstances you will need to have your signature witnessed. Occasionally, this will need to be witnessed by another solicitor, but normally documents can be witnessed by someone over the age of 18 who is NOT a member of your family and who does not have an interest in the transaction. We will clearly indicate to you who needs to sign and where.
Your mortgage with your existing lender must be paid right up to the agreed completion date and your lender will provide us with the figure required to redeem your mortgage up to the time of completion. PLEASE DO NOT CANCEL YOUR MORTGAGE PAYMENTS UNTIL WE HAVE CONFIRMED THIS TO YOU. Details of when to start paying your new mortgage are included in your mortgage offer but if you are unsure, please contact your new lender directly to arrange your payments.
Once we have received our copy of your mortgage offer, our aim is to complete a standard remortgage transaction within 10-14 working days. Unfortunately, cases which involve a matrimonial dispute or bankruptcy will require additional work and usually take longer to complete.
Please ensure that you send all signed documents, identification, building insurance information and existing lender information to us as soon as we request it to avoid unnecessary delays.
Sometimes we are required to send redemption monies to your existing lender by Telegraphic Transfer. If this is the case then we will charge a fee IN ADDITION to our standard "all inclusive product". This charge is only imposed if the existing lender requires the account to be credited immediately. Although this is an extra charge, it can save you up to 7 days interest.
Occasionally, the new lender will send funds to us by Telegraphic Transfer and you may see their charge and ours on the completion statement. They are however different transactions.
You may also see as part of the balance due, a premium for membership of our Premier Client Club. As a Premier client you will be entitled to:
- 25% off any future conveyancing or remortgage transactions
- 25% off our fees for Wills and Powers of Attorney
- 25% off our services for family members and friends
- £100 cash on our acceptance of a non-fault road traffic accident claim
We believe our Premier Client Club offers considerable value for money as who knows what is around the corner? Most of us need to use one or more legal services at some point and our membership offers discounts or money back across a range of services. However, of course it is your choice.
After completion has taken place our post completion department deals with the registration of the title and the payment of stamp duty (only applicable in Remortgage cases if you have transferred the property, the existing mortgages is above a specific amount or more and /or money has been paid over). If the transfer is in respect of a divorce, you may be exempt from stamp duty. This process usually takes several weeks to finalise but as soon as registration has been dealt with we will confirm this to you and send the mortgage deeds back to the bank or building society where they will be held until the mortgage has been paid or the property is sold.
When one or two people wish to transfer a property into single or joint names, you will require a Transfer of Equity. For example, a house in the sole name of the husband to be transferred into either the wife's sole name or joint names. In these cases, the transferor will need to take separate legal advice as we cannot act for both parties. We charge a separate fee for a Transfer of Equity and you may also have to pay extra Land Registry fees in these cases. We will, of course, inform you of any extra charges at the earliest possible opportunity.
A simple definition of conveyancing is the transfer of ownership or property rights from one individual to another. Goldsmith Williams has 27 years conveyancing experience and our job is to ensure that there are no problems relating to the property you are buying or selling. We also give you the peace of mind that all legal formalities have been carried out properly.
Once we have received our instructions to act for you (this normally comes from your financial adviser), you can expect to hear from us within 7 working days. We will write to both you and your financial adviser to acknowledge our instructions and send you our Terms of Business letter and 'Guide to Buying and Selling'. At this stage, a team will be allocated to deal with your case and you will be given a direct dial telephone number to contact them. Any member of the team will be able to help you with your enquiries throughout the transaction.
We will also write to the estate agent and the seller's solicitors as soon as we know who they are, requesting contract documentation. We're just as keen as you are to complete your transaction quickly, so we apply for searches on your property as soon as we receive our instructions to act for you. At this stage we carry out a combined local and environmental search, which searches the Council's register as to any restrictions within the boundaries of your new property. Please see our 'Guide to Buying and Selling' for full details of our local search facility.
The seller's solicitors have to provide us with legal details of the property. The main document is the contract. This is prepared by the sellers' solicitors and sets out the terms of what has been agreed (i.e. price, names of people involved). There are also other documents which the seller's solicitors need to send us regarding planning permission, rights of way and other important matters. Quite often we will need to raise additional questions about these prior to exchange.
We will normally receive our copy of your mortgage offer a day or so after you and we will now write again to the other side to request contracts if they have not already sent these to us. Provided we have received:
- The results of our searches
- Copy of the mortgage offer
- Contract papers from the other side solicitors
Your file will be passed to our title examiner who will check the title, raise any further enquiries and apply for any specialist searches required (for example, a mining search or water search) and prepare our report to you. We aim to send this report to you within 7 working days.
Once you receive our report PLEASE READ ALL DOCUMENTS CAREFULLY before you sign them. In some circumstances you will need to have your signature witnessed. Occasionally this will need to be witnessed by another solicitor, but normally documents can be witnessed by someone over the age of 18 who is NOT a member of your family and who does not have an interest in the transaction. We will clearly indicate to you who needs to sign and where.
Within our report you will also find a deed of consent form, (sometimes called an occupiers waiver), which needs to be signed by anyone who will be living in your property who is over the age of 17 and not named on the mortgage. Sometimes they will have to take independent legal advice before signing this form. If this is not applicable in your case simply return the form to us.
You should send all documents and your identification back to us by special delivery. Your identification will be checked and returned to you by Special Delivery. Details of the types of identification we can accept are highlighted in our 'Guide to Buying and Selling'.
Once we have received:
- Your signed documentation
- Results of all searches (including specialist searches)
- Answers to any additional questions we have raised with the other side solicitors
We will talk to you about the completion date. At this stage we also have to ensure that all the mortgage lenders conditions have been met and that you have adequate Buildings Insurance and Life insurance in line with the lenders specific requirements. Different lenders have different conditions and all of these need to be met before funds will be released. Lenders conditions can range from seeing a structural survey report to seeing divorce papers.
You should arrange to send us your deposit as soon as you have returned your documentation. You should send this by telegraphic transfer and details of how to pay this are included in our 'Important Notes' folder that we send to you with our report. Telegraphic transfer is far safer than sending a cheque or bankers draft which can get lost.