Oportfolio joins with eConveyancer (Source: Reallymoving.com)
We at Oportfolio Mortgages have some very exciting news. We are now officially working with eConveyancer, a property conveyancing organisation that will help us to provide an even smoother and better mortgage journey for our remortgage clients.
What Is A Conveyancer?
In the mortgage and house purchase process, we (Mortgage advisors) handle the mortgage brokering and application side of things. Making sure that your application goes as smoothly as possible, and you get the best possible outcome for your circumstances. Another big part of the process are conveyancers or the ‘legal’ side of everything. When purchasing a property, you must have legal representation to make sure that everything is above board and no one is at risk of losing any money or breaking any laws. Conveyancers will handle sale completions and transfers of monies (deposit, mortgage balance etc…) as well as other essential legal exercises that come with property purchases.
When remortgaging or buying a house you generally have two options, you can hire your own legal representatives for a fee who will act on your behalf. The fee that these conveyancers charge depends entirely on the firm but can be anywhere from £1,000 to several thousand pounds. They must be official firms with recognised legal qualifications and in most cases will need to be recognised by the mortgage lenders as such too. If your firm is not deemed an acceptable legal representative by the lender, you will need to switch to someone who is.
The other option people have is to get free legal representation through the mortgage lender themselves, from a trusted firm. This is often listed as a benefit on a selected mortgage product. You may see if listed as something like ‘Free valuation + free legals). This may seem like a much more beneficial route forward, however this has historically not always been the case. As these firms are free to use, the quality of the service you receive is not always as good as the paid options. Free legals can be slow and inundated with lots of other cases, making a quick turn around on a mortgage very tricky.
Oportfolio Mortgages Partner With eConveyancer For Remortgages
We have a great new system now where we can avoid the frustrating ‘free legal option’ for clients remortgaging and at no additional cost. Senior Mortgage and Protection advisor at Oportfolio Jade Pinkerton talks you through what this means for our clients:
‘Free legals can unfortunately be ridiculously slow and difficult to deal with. The communication is tedious, often no one senior is available to escalate serious matters until it is too late. Issues or delays are often only found at the end of the process, which can be stressful to our clients. After having a great experience of the mortgage application process through ourselves, we want our clients to have good conveyancing experiences too and for the whole remortgage process to be as stress free as possible. Of course we will look after the mortgage element and ensure clients have the peace of mind they need that their remortgage is being looked after, but if we can help or provide on the other elements like conveyancing then we most certainly will.’
How Does It Work?
‘There are options available currently where lenders will offer ‘cashback’ to clients, instead of ‘free legals’. Sometimes it makes sense to take this. While some lenders offer £250- £500 cashback this is not often enough to cover the cost of appointing your own conveyancer which can cost multiple thousands of pounds.
Our new partnership with eConveyancer means that we now have access to a panel of conveyancers that will do the legal work for the exact amount of cashback beings offered – therefore the result being ‘free legals’ but with a conveyancing team we have actually chosen, rather than the one the bank offers. Because of this, we can easily follow up with theses teams, push things through and also hold them more accountable if anything is delayed. Also, we can see their ratings (from clients and advisers), and turnaround times so we know exactly who we are recommending for our clients.’
Why Is This Such a Good Move For Our Clients?
This is great news for every client that we have and is currently thinking of remortgaging. No doubt, most will have experienced the tedious free legals before, so being able to avoid this and make the process smoother (at no extra cost) will be a huge relief.
We do have access to rapid conveyancing if needed, and options where no legal work is needed at all, but for those thinking of remortgaging or their current rate expiring soon, just get in touch. We can help and advise on the mortgage and legal process options available too. Call our team of expert remortgage advisors today to learn more about the process and our new eConveyancer panel.
