Free legals - making remortgaging simpler

Help & support

At Newbury Building Society, we understand that remortgaging can often feel lengthy and costly. That’s why we’re committed to making the process as simple and straightforward as possible.

By removing the need for a solicitor in most cases and offering the legal work ‘fee free’, we aim to reduce delays and expenses. 

Why is Newbury’s service different? 

Free legals are common for remortgage applications and are usually where a mortgage lender appoints a solicitor to act on the customer’s and lender’s behalf. Newbury Building Society provides this service in a slightly different way to other lenders. 

Unlike traditional free legals, we rely on the legal work that was completed when you bought your property, or when changes were last made to your property’s ownership records at HM Land Registry. 

This means that all we need to do is some background checks at HM Land Registry, and when your mortgage is switched from your current mortgage lender, we will register our mortgage against your property with HM Land Registry(known as a legal charge). 

Without the need to complete further legal work, we can help to make the process smoother and quicker. Because we are not going through that process, we take out a special insurance policy to cover us, called “title insurance”. This protects us in the unlikely event we need to repossess your property and if an issue is discovered with any previous legal work on the property.
 

1. Application review

  • We review your property title (the document confirming your ownership of the property.)  

  • We check whether your application is eligible for free legals.

2. Planning completion

If you already have a mortgage, we’ll ask for:

  • Proposed completion date (when you want to switch your mortgage to us.)
  • Early repayment charge (if applies) and when these expire (you can find this out from your current lender.)

This helps us ensure we have enough time to work towards your requested completion date. Your completion date must be a business day; we are unable to complete on a weekend or bank holiday.

3. After mortgage approvalYou’ll receive your mortgage offer and your mortgage deeds. 
4. What you must do. 

At least 5 working days before completion you need to make sure we have received: 

  • Signed and dated mortgage offer.
  • Signed and witnessed mortgage deeds (originals must be sent back to us.) 
  • A redemption statement for less than the amount you are borrowing from us.

Note: We can accept the offer via email, but original deeds are required.

A redemption statement is confirmation from your existing lender of exactly how much you need to repay to close your mortgage to allow you to remortgage to Newbury Building Society. This statement confirms the outstanding mortgage balance including any fees and charges up to the completion date. This is different to just an outstanding balance, which will be the balance of your mortgage at the date you request without any fees, charges or interest to the date you want to switch.

You need to obtain this directly from your existing mortgage lender. In our experience, the process is quicker and smoother where you request this yourself because your existing mortgage lender can send it to you without having to check you are happy for the information to be shared with us. If you’re unsure what to ask for, just get in touch and we’ll be happy to help.

Important rules

  • The statement must be for your proposed completion date. 
  • The amount must be less than your new mortgage offer from Newbury Building Society. 
  • The amount must cover any early repayment charges or exit fees.
  • If the amount is above your new mortgage offer amount, you need to discuss with your existing lender and make a payment to your existing mortgage. We cannot make this payment for you. You will then need to request an updated redemption statement showing the corrected balance. 

What happens to extra money you have lent me?

  • Over £10 → paid to the bank account you have confirmed you will pay your monthly mortgage payments from.
  • Under £10 → applied to your mortgage balance as an overpayment.

There are some cases where we are unable to complete your remortgage using this service because the circumstances make it necessary for a solicitor/conveyancer to act for you. We will always try and notify you, or your broker as early in the process as possible. 

You may not qualify if your title or application show: 

  • A mismatch between title and application (e.g. if the property is owned by one person but the mortgage is being applied for jointly, or if ownership of the property needs to change.)

  • A property management company requires legal documentation before the mortgage can be  completed. 

  • There is a legal agreement recorded against the property that sets out how ownership is shared (Declaration of Trust.)

  • Your current mortgage is linked to a savings or current account (e.g. an offset mortgage.)

  • You permanently live abroad.

If you have a worry about the legal work completed when you purchased your property and want the reassurance of a solicitor/conveyancer reviewing them, let us know and we can let you know who can act for both you and us from our panel of solicitors.