free legals

Nationwide praised for scrapping free legals on remortgages




Nationwide has removed 'free legals' as an option for remortgage customers and increased its remortgage cashback.

As of Thursday 13th July, remortgage cashback deals offered by the high street lender have been increased from £250 to £500.

Online conveyancing portal SortRefer has praised Nationwide for making this decision.

Kevin Tunnicliffe, chief executive at SortRefer, claimed: “The recent horrendous service issues that have been widely reported as a result of lender-chosen ‘free legals’ conveyancing firms being overwhelmed, seems to have concentrated minds.

“We therefore welcome Nationwide’s move to withdraw free legals in favour of bolstering their cashback offering.

“This is a signal that we will see more lenders following suit.

“Apart from the obvious and very visible service issues, we have always felt that customers are not best served where – with a free legals package – the conveyancer chosen by the lender only represents the lender and not the client.

“This can be dangerous for the client by not having representation and many brokers have found that communication on case progress can be poor or non-existent.

“With a cashback, brokers are able to give clients the choice of using the cashback as a means to ensure their client is properly represented and that they have more control over the progress of the case.”

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