Switched mortgage provider now paying two mortgage on the house at same time

I changed mortgage provider. I presumed the solicitor would only draw down the new mortgage when closing the old mortgage.

I wasn't checking my bank account but now see that this week a second payment went out on the new mortgage but I am still paying the old mortgage. Now paying out on two mortgages, obviously also paying a lot of interest as well as capital on the old mortgage, interest I don't want to be paying.

Has anybody any experience or advice on this? I wrote to the solicitor today advising that the old mortgage should be paid off immediately. Do I have any recourse on the interest paid out on the old mortgage?

Are you sure the old mortgage is still active and not just a case of direct debit/standing order not cancelled? Check with previous provider tomorrow and see if the balance was cleared or there is now a credit on it of the duplicate payments.

Hi Monbretia,

I checked and the old mortgage provider is still direct debiting my account for the old mortgage.

I checked the balance on my old mortgage last week and it is in line with payments continuing to be paid.

I know the solicitor has not paid the redemption amount on the old mortgage because I have been chasing him to do it. My shock today was discovering that I have been paying the mortgage on the new mortgage by direct debited from one of my bank accounts. I had not been checking this bank account. I had presumed the new mortgage would not direct debit until around the time the old mortgage was paid off. It is now approaching 3 months I have been paying two mortgages.



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Explanation needed from solicitor so!

Strongback said:

I had presumed the new mortgage would not direct debit until around the time the old mortgage was paid off. It is now approaching 3 months I have been paying two mortgages.

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The new mortgage will start charging interest from the day the money was transferred to your solicitor. They would not be giving you an interest-free loan.

I can't see any reason why he would not clear the old mortgage immediately. Maybe there was some delay in the old lender giving him the balance but even still, he should have cleared it and sorted out the final amount later.

Get an explanation, but on the face of it, it would like negligence on the side of the solicitor. If he does not have an explanation, you should tell him to pay the interest.

Brendan

After 3 months here deed of discharge should have been received, lodged, and registration completed. The new mortgage should be registered and all the title deeds should be with your new lender by now.

It shouldn't have taken more than 48 hours after drawing down the new loan to have the old one fully redeemed. Really it should have been done the same day. If the solicitor hasn't paid a penny off your old mortgage in 3 months then something is very wrong. At best your solicitor is incompetent and if I were you I'd be praying that's the issue.

Contact the Law Society and the Legal Services Regulator. As a matter of urgency and in writing. Ideally you should send an email to the Law Society setting out the full facts as you know them in detail before you go to sleep tonight.

(Conveyancing was my bread and butter for several years).

I suspect is it is incompetence, taking on too much work and not being able to adequate service it. He did send an email out of the blue complaining the old mortgage provider had delayed sending mortgage deeds by 6 weeks. The penny did not drop with me at the time he was trying to explain away the delay, he probably twigged I was paying two mortgages and was trying to cover his tracks. I was oblivious to the fact I was paying two mortgages at the same time as I was not checking the bank account the mortgages are direct debited from.

Would the new mortgage company have needed to see the deeds to release their mortgage check?

My feeling is the cheque for the new mortgage should not have been requested until all the paperwork to pay off the old mortgage was ready.

What part of "something is very wrong" was unclear?

Your solicitor is letting a big lump of your cash rest in his account as Father Ted would say. For three months. Incompetence is your best case scenario but that scenario is still pretty bad.

Contact the Law Society & regulator as a matter of urgency and in writing.

BIG-notorious said:

Contact the Law Society and the Legal Services Regulator. As a matter of urgency and in writing. Ideally you should send an email to the Law Society setting out the full facts as you know them in detail before you go to sleep tonight.

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I am not sure about this.

Tell the solicitor to clear it by the end of this week or else you will seek the assistance of the Law Society and LSR to get it done.

Your priority is to stop paying interest not to get bogged down in a regulatory swamp.

When the old mortgage is paid off, then you write to the solicitor and seek a full refund of the interest.

If he refuses or does not reply, then you go nuclear.

Thanks Brendan, solicitor confirm old mortgage now paid off today. Now to lo the refund

I suggest you check with your old mortgage provider to confirm.

When it is all confirmed, you can write to him demanding a refund of the interest and when you get his written response, report back.

May I ask how does the mortgage switch typically happen? Is all the paperwork for both mortgages prepared prior to the switch?

1. Solicitor receives instructions from client
2. Client signs authorisation for current lender to release title deeds to solicitor
3. Solicitor receives title deeds
4. Solicitor reviews title deeds & performs searches to identify any issues with title
   1. Issues could include a judgement mortgage, planning enforcement proceedings, list pendens etc. In this case the solicitor submits a qualification on title to the lender's solicitors which they may or may not approve.
5. Solicitor provides an undertaking to the new lender to register a first legal charge in their favour on the property
6. Solicitor requests funds
   1. Lender issues funds once all other requirements met for example life and buildings insurance are in place.
7. Solicitor discharges existing mortgage, pays their own fees and outlay, and pay any balance to the client.
8. Solicitor registers new mortgage, received deed of discharge/vacated mortgage from old lender and registers that
9. Solicitor returns deeds to new lender.

From the solicitors perspective 5. is the real biggie. If your solicitor didn't have the title deeds actually in hand they couldn't possibly have examined them before giving the undertaking to your lender so they were immediately in breach. And they continued in breach for 3 months.

It's hard to overstate how big an issue it is for a solicitor to hold on to any amount of money for any length of time. If I suddenly found out that I was working in a solicitors office where the a mortgage was drawn down and the old mortgage wasn't paid off for three months the best thing I could do would be walk and sign on the dole after I reported the matter to the Law Society while praying I could salvage my career. Being associated with something like that is potentially career ending, and I know of a former colleague whose career in this jurisdiction was ended through their association with their former employer.

As to why your solicitor didn't pay off your old mortgage for 3 months there may be an entirely innocent explanation. But you should anyway google "Ruairi O’Ceallaigh Solicitor", "Mark Cronin Solicitor" and "Jacqueline Durcan solicitor".

Your previous posts suggest the remortgage was for around €300k. Hardly peanuts. You should be wondering where that €300k went on holidays for the last 3 months. And you should also be wondering if anyone else's money is on vacay with this solicitor.

You should report your solicitor to the Law Society, who will then go over their accounts with a fine tooth comb. If your solicitor has done no wrong then they will have no fear.

Thanks for the detailed response Big-notorious. I am in no doubt it was incompetence. Point 5 possibly circumvented..

What is your experience with getting a refund of the interest in this type of instance?

The old mortgage lender confirmed the old mortgage has been redeemed and the account is closed.

I wrote to the solicitor asking 1) Why was there a 3 month delay in redeeming the mortgage, 2) Pointed out the money value of interest that was paid over the 3 months on the old mortgage 3) Asked the solicitor how he was going to address the lost money paid out in interest.

He has written back advising he is looking into this. If the response does not include a commitment to refund the interest I will respond demanding a full refund of the interest. I will report back how this goes