Karen Babington, sales and marketing director at Easier2move, commented: “We are fairly surprised to hear claims that lenders are refusing to accept the personal searches provided with a HIP. The lenders in question, HSBC and Barclays, have flatly denied these claims.
“The majority of solicitors have been using personal searches for quite some time. Although a small number of lenders have questioned the validity of the searches, most are quite happy to go ahead, once a solicitor will use their indemnity insurance alongside the search results.
“In addition, considering the majority of the mortgage market uses these personal searches, any lender that refuses is only passing on further costs to their clients with an additional, and unnecessary, search.
“At Easier2move, we offer a copy of the solicitor’s indemnity insurance alongside our HIPs and we urge other providers to do the same in order to ensure lenders are confident of the quality of the searches. This will help to save on time spent carrying out unnecessary secondary searches and ease the home buying process for consumers.”
