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We are now half way through the year and I’m pleased to see that, if only for a few days, the weather has started to perk up and look a bit more like summer.
The time since I last wrote has passed in a flurry of activity with new cases, new sales incentives and lots and lots of completions.
A key topic which I’ve touched upon before is solicitors and how they can have a huge impact on the completion timeframe of a case. This issue has been highlighted even more strongly in a few cases I have been working on recently.
The first case involves a borrower who is purchasing a property to renovate and move into. She requires 100 per cent of the purchase price as her money is tied up in her current home which hasn’t sold together with a few investment properties, which are also being marketed. Her mother has agreed to assist in her venture and has offered her home as additional security. Due to the conflict of interest Masthaven insisted that both borrowers were seen by a separate solicitor in the same firm.
The solicitor’s firm was not comfortable with this arrangement and insisted that two separate firms were used. This normally does not present a problem as our solicitor liaises with the main solicitor on the transaction; that solicitor then passes the items required from the second borrower onto the second solicitor, who then collects these items and sends them together with their own clients’ documents back to us.
In this particular loan the solicitor involved was not happy to act in this way and instead insisted that we dealt with the other solicitor directly. Several weeks had passed to get to this point and in the spirit of trying to help and get the loan completed we agreed and issued the documents to the second solicitors. Despite numerous chasers nothing was returned and the client’s mother was forced to instruct a new solicitor. Documents have been reissued and I am hopeful that we will reach a successful completion shortly.
At the opposite end of the scale, another case involved a company looking to purchase the commercial premises they currently trade from. They had sourced the bulk of the finance and required our bridge to provide top up funds. The completion deadline was tight, as is often the case, with the vendor threatening to evict them if they did not complete on a specific date. There were four guarantors involved and several of them needed separate legal advice. Despite this, when our solicitor received the pack of signed legal documents they had been executed correctly, the correct advice had been given, all correct ID documents were received and there were only a few matters outstanding. You might think this sounds easy but I assure you this is unfortunately a rarity.
Due to the high risk involved in bridging, one thing Masthaven insists upon is the borrower seeing their solicitor face-to-face and their solicitors confirming that the person in front of them is the same person as shown in either the passport or driving license photo. This is a strict requirement that cannot be waived. What we can accept is a solicitor who is local to the borrower certifying the ID. A separate solicitor who knows the bridging process, provided that they are happy they have met their own “know your customer” requirements, can then deal with the various requisitions and advice relating to the bridge and signing of documentation.
It may mean the client incurring a slightly higher fee in seeing two separate firms but if it could make the difference between meeting the set deadline and not, it is certainly worth considering.
On a separate topic, a group of us attended the Bridging and Commercial awards ceremony and it was great to catch up with lots of (masked) faces and meet some new ones. As usual, the team at B&C put on a fantastic event and a great time was had by all.
Masthaven won Best Bridging Proposition, which is a great achievement and shows how willing we are to meet all our brokers requirements. I was extremely proud to be nominated for and to win the award for Bridging/Commercial Underwriter of the Year. I love my job and get a huge amount of satisfaction when I work hard with a broker and client to complete a difficult case; always striving to offer the best service I can and make the process as smooth as possible. Winning an award voted for by brokers who feel that I am doing just that is the icing on the cake and I would like to thank everyone who supported me.
