Bank refusing to release legal pack to solicitor without loan offer signed

E

eguimaraesh

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Hello all,

My wife and I received a loan offer from our lender (Moco) in late December, but our solicitor advised us not to sign until they got the legal pack from the lender. Our broker told us at the same time that the lender was preparing the legal pack.

January arrived and we discovered that Moco won't release the legal pack to the solicitor without us signing the loan offer first. Our solicitor has advised us again to request the legal pack before signing, and won't advise us on the loan offer without the full legal pack. Our broker is negotiating with Moco to change their procedure.

Is it standard practice to oblige the borrower to sign the loan offer without legal advice? (It's a Docusign document that I managed to download as a PDF, but many consumers won't have that knowledge)

Is our solicitor being overly cautious in wanting to review and advise on the whole legal pack? Are we putting ourselves at risk if we sign without legal advice? All the details look correct to us.

It also seems bizarre for them to do this, because how could they defend a potential FSPO complaint on the terms if the borrower said they didn't understand what they were signing or it was incorrect? Moco couldn't use the usual "you got legal advice" line (this doesn't appear in the loan offer).
 
Why not use a proper Irish bank/broker who know the system works?
When I was buying a house I had mortgage approval my self with two bank and with a broker. When it same to actually signing on the dotted line I went with the best offer.
 
Does it matter if you sign it first?

You are not committing to the loan and can always borrow elsewhere if you subsequently don't like it.

While, of course, your solicitor must look at it, I have never heard of a solicitor say to anyone that there was something wrong with the mortgage offer e.g. "Do you realise that this ptsb discounted tracker is not actually a tracker?"

Brendan
 
A good solicitor will not allow a client to sign anything until they (the solicitor) have read the document first. They will also charge for reading the document. At this stage we don't know what is in the document. It may tie the purchaser into using Moco, so they cannot shop around in the months it can take to actually purchase the property. This could be why Moco will not put the effort into sending out the legal pack until they get a signature.
 
Regarding Docusign, digital signatures have been legal in Ireland for years. There is a photo of Bertie with Bill Clinton just after it was signed into law, I think taken in the Gateway 2000 factory. Bertie is using a 'computer mouse,' it is obvious that (back then) Bertie had never used a mouse in his life before :)
 
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