Landbay Solicitor Panel Sample Enquires to our Call Center from members of the public
My fiance and I are novices when it comes to buying a property. Within the 48 hours our lawyer has sent a preliminary report and documents to look through in anticipation of exchanging contracts shortly. Landbay have this afternoon contacted us to advise us that they have now hit a problem as our solicitor is not on their approved list of lawyers. Is this a problem?
If you are buying a property with the assistance of a mortgage it is usual for the purchaser's solicitors to also act for the purchaser's lender.
In order to act for a bank or building society a law firm has to be on that lender's conveyancing panel. An application has to be made by the law firm to the lender to become a member of the lender's panel and there are increasingly strict criteria which the firm has to satisfy and indeed some lenders now require their panel members to be part of the Law Society’s Conveyancing Quality Scheme. Your solicitors should contact Landbay and see if they can apply for membership of the Landbay conveyancing panel, but if that is not viable Landbay will instruct their own lawyers to represent them. You are not legally obliged to appoint a law firm on the Landbay conveyancing panel and you may continue to use your own solicitors, in which case it will likely add costs, and it will likely delay the transaction as you have another set of people involved.
Our property lawyer is asking me for ID documents saying that this is part of his requirements as a solicitor on the Landbay Solicitor panel. Am I being spun a yarn?
Anti-terror and anti-money-laundering rules require solicitors and licensed conveyancers to verify the identity of the person or body they are dealing with before they can accept their conveyancing business. The Client Care letter that you need to sign will no doubt confirm this. Your lawyer is right that Landbay also require certain documents to be viewed. If a you refuse to provide ID verification documents, your conveyancer would not be able to accept instructions from you. Your lawyer also has obligations to obtain certain documents in accordance with Landbay CML Handbook requirements last updated on Landbay
I see that you have a search directory listing solicitors on the Landbay conveyancing panel. Do firms pay you a referral fee if I appoint them for my house purchase?
We are a listing service only for law firms wishing to communicate if they are on the Landbay conveyancing panel or other lender panels. We do not charge referral fees to the any conveyancer that you subsequently appoint.
The lawyers that I appointed last week on my purchase in Newcastle has without warning shut down. I chose them because I had to have a lawyer on the Landbay conveyancing panel and my preferred lawyer was not. I gave my credit card details for them to take £175 for searches. What do I do now?
Assuming that you have an Estate Agent in the equation then let them know straight away so that they can let the sellers know that there may be a slight delay due to reasons beyond your control. Hopefully they will be sympathetic and urge their lawyer to send a new set of papers to your new solicitors. You should appoint new lawyers that are on the Landbay conveyancing panel and notify the lender. If you have paid over any money it will hopefully be held by the SRA as money in an intervened firm's bank accounts is transferred to the SRA. Then, the SRA or the intervention agent looks at the intervened firm's accounts to work out who the money belongs to. To claim your money you will need to contact the SRA. If the SRA cannot return money you are owed from the firm's bank accounts, or if they can only return part of the money, you can apply to the Compensation Fund for a grant. Your new solicitors should be in a position to assist
I previously instructed online conveyancers based in Birmingham who are on the Landbay solicitor panel. They are now charging me a separate fee of £150 for the legal aspects of the Landbay mortgage. Is this an additional conveyancing fee specified by Landbay?
Unfortunately, as long as it is in their Terms and Conditions or Quote then yes your solicitors can charge a fee for this. This fee is not set by Landbay but by your lawyers. Some firms on the Landbay will charge an ‘acting for lender’ fee but plenty of firms include it on their overall fee.
Planning on purchasing a house with a mortgage with Landbay. I have received an online quote from a licensed conveyancer, which states: "There will be no charge for dealing with the Lender if you are obtaining a mortgage". I take this to mean that there will be no additional fee if the solicitor is on the Landbay conveyancing panel. I wanted to make sure it means there will be no additional fees for dealing with the mortgage.
They are simply saying that the cost for acting for the lender is included in the fee being quoted. It is worth you checking that they are on the Landbay conveyancing panel
My offer was accepted on an apartment on the 7th March 2014, valuation was booked 2 days later, received a clean bill of health. Conveyancer appointed, so the only thing outstanding was my mortgage offer. Having made daily calls to Landbay and chasing them on my offer I have now been told that my offer will not be issued unless the lawyer is on the Landbay conveyancing panel. Can the lender hold off the offer?
Mortgage companies tend not to not issue a mortgage until they have details of a lawyer on their panel. It can take a few weeks for Landbay to deal with your lawyers application to be on the Landbay conveyancing panel. There's no guarantee that your solicitors will be accepted.
