When you’ve decided you’re looking to remortgage, the first step is to instruct a solicitor to act for both you and your new lender. This is an important decision as your solicitor will represent your interests throughout the process, so we recommend not defaulting to the cheapest provider. Instead, make sure you find out more about the services and the costs and base your decision on your requirements and available budget.
We’ll share client care documents with you at the beginning, this will help us get a better idea of your personal circumstances and requirements. Once you have returned all of the relevant documents, we can begin acting for you. Sometimes there are small, upfront costs for electronic ID checks and searches. We’ll make sure to inform you of any of these costs from the get-go. The reason we charge these at the beginning, is so you don’t have to keep making payments to us throughout the process and we can hopefully avoid any unnecessary delays.
We’ll proactively carry out an initial title check on your property, making sure to flag any issues early, and giving you as much time as possible to provide us with any additional documentation we might need. For some properties or lenders, we may need to ask for a redemption figure from your existing lender, so we’ll pick this up at this stage if required.
If you haven’t done so already, you’ll now need to let your mortgage broker or lender know that you have instructed us to act on your behalf. This allows them to send us your mortgage offer once it has been issued to you. As we also act on behalf of the lender we may have to report to them on various points and adhere to any mortgage conditions – again, your conveyancer will be able to advise you if this is required. If there are no outstanding legal points to deal with, your remortgage should be complete within a few weeks of us receiving your mortgage offer – it’s as simple as that.
When we have all the relevant details, we’ll provide you with more information on the terms of the mortgage and if you are happy with the terms outlined, you’ll need to sign your mortgage deed and return this to us.
Once we have dealt with all mortgage conditions and received your signed mortgage deed, we will request the funds be transferred to us from your new lender. Once this has been received, we’ll pay off the remainder of the existing mortgage and send you the balance (if applicable).
The last step comes post completion, a few days after everything has been finalised we will arrange to send you your completion letters and ask for any feedback on your experience. We’ll also deal with registering the new lender’s charge over your property at Land Registry and removing any existing charges from the previous agreement. We might need to contact other third parties to confirm you have a different lender, such as a managing agent – not to worry, we’ll let you know if this is the case. Once the new charge is registered we will forward you a copy of the up to date property register and your remortgage is complete.
Once the seller’s solicitor has replied to all of our enquiries, we will do a full review to check we’re happy and have all the information we need, we’ll then prepare a full property report for you. This will explain the title, summarise the search results, and anything else that affects the property. You’ll need to take the time to read and review the report to check you are happy with everything before proceeding, but we’ll be there to advise you. If you have any questions just get in touch with your conveyancer and they’ll be happy to help.
Once we’ve approved the contract, we’ll send it to you for signature. We’ll advise you on the terms of the contract but if you’re happy with the final details, you’ll sign the document and return this to us. Again, this can be done in a few ways to make the process as easy for you as possible. Send the signed contract to us by post or using a land registry compliant electronic signature – just let us know if you want to sign the contract electronically. You are not tied in to the contract at this stage, your conveyancer will speak to you and let you know before exchanging the contract with the seller.
Once the date has been agreed with all parties and the legal matters have been concluded we’ll exchange contracts with the seller. At this point you and the seller are both tied in to the contract so you’ll need to complete the transaction on the agreed date and all other contractual terms will come into force. Typically, this will happen within 6 to 8 weeks of the contract pack being received but your conveyancer will be able to advise.
To keep things running smoothly, we’ll prepare as much as we can before the completion day. You’ll need to sign a transfer deed, SDLT Form, and if applicable a mortgage deed. You’ll also be given your draft completion statement with a note of any outstanding payments due to us. This will hopefully leave you all the time you need to prepare for your move.
Today’s the day you’ve been waiting for! As soon as we have the full purchase monies required (your deposit, and the money from your lender), we will send this to the seller’s solicitor. The seller’s solicitor will contact the estate agent to release the keys to you once they have received the funds and when we have confirmation it’s time for you to collect the keys.
A few days after completion we will arrange to send you all of your completion letters and ask for any feedback on your experience throughout your transaction. There are a few additional administrative tasks needing completed at this stage so we’ll help you with these as well. We’ll get the property registered in your name at Land Registry, submit your SDLT return, and pay any tax due. We may also need to contact other third parties to confirm you are the new owners, such as a managing agent, your conveyancer will let you know we’re doing this if this is the case. Once the property is registered, we’ll forward you a copy of the up to date property register and any other property documents that the seller has provided us with.