Remortgage - Key Stages

Taking Instructions and giving initial advice

After you have received and accepted our quote, we will send you the initial paperwork for you to sign including our Terms of Business and Confirmations of Instruction. We will also send a questionnaire for you to fill in, providing details about the transaction, property and your bank details for the proceeds to be sent to on completion. We cannot commence legal work on your file until we have received your formal signed instructions.

Title Check and Drafting the Contract

We will order the title documents (known as ‘Official Copies’) from the Land Registry. These confirm your legal ownership of the property and give information about any mortgages that need to be repaid or restrictions on the title that need to be complied with.

Redemption Statement

We will contact your existing mortgage lender(s) for a redemption statement, which shows how much is owing on your current mortgage. We will forward a copy to you. This will give you an idea as to how much money you will be receiving on completion of the transaction after your mortgage has been paid off. Alternatively, if your new mortgage is less than the figure required to pay off your existing loan, you will need to pay the shortfall to make up the difference on completion.

Mortgage Offer

During a remortgage, we are likely to be representing your purchaser as well as you. This means that when the mortgage offer is received, we are obliged to carry out any checks or searches that the lender requires.

After checking the mortgage offer we will send a Mortgage Report to you, together with a Mortgage Deed for you to sign. If the lender so requires, we may also send an Occupiers Consent Form to be executed by any adult occupiers living in the property who will not be named as legal owners.

Agree a Completion Date

You are free to complete your remortgage at any time during which the mortgage offer is valid (most lenders usually issue mortgage offers lasting 3 or 6 months).

You may instruct us to complete the transaction as soon as possible. Alternatively if, for example, you have Early Repayment Charges with your current lender due to their fixed rate agreement, you may instruct us to delay completion until these charges have expired.
Once a completion date is agreed, we will send a Certificate of Title to your new mortgage lender to request the mortgage funds, and may request an up-to-date redemption statement from your existing lender if applicable.

Pre-Completion Searches

Prior to completing the transaction we will carry out an OS1 search at the Land Registry. This will tell us if any legal changes have been made to the title since our initial title check. It will also put the Land Registry on notice that we are to submit an application to amend the legal title.

We will also carry out a bankruptcy search against you, as per the mortgage lender’s requirements.

Completion

We will send you a Completion Statement prior to the day of completion to illustrate exactly how funds will be distributed. On the completion day, we will receive the monies from your new mortgage lender, redeem (pay off) your existing mortgage loan and send the proceeds of funds to you (if appliable) minus our legal fees and disbursements as given in the initial quote.

Post Completion and Stamp Duty

The final stage for us is to register your new mortgage lender’s interest at the Land Registry. We do this by submitting an application to the Land Registry together with your signed Mortgage Deed and any other relevant documents.

When the registration has completed (usually several months after the legal completion of the transaction) we will send the updated title registers to you and the mortgage lender.