There are regulations imposed separately by our regulator, Law Society of Scotland, in relation to Money Laundering and other offences and, in addition, lenders have their own specific variable requirements when they instruct us to act on their behalf in the remortgage. We need to comply with these regulations and requirements and we do not have any discretion.

Your remortgage falls within one of the categories where we require to obtain a higher level of identity checking often called “Certified ID”. We know that for many borrowers there is a close relationship with the broker who is arranging the remortgage. If, you are discussing this with your broker please send them this link and we also include below Frequently Asked Questions for brokers. Hopefully, this will answer any queries that they have avoiding the need to contact us.

If either you or your broker does wish to contact us on this point it is much the best course of action to email us on mmiidentification@mcvey-murricane.com quoting our reference number from your email.

Any of the following can certify your ID as part of your remortgage through McVey & Murricane:

• McVey & Murricane
• Any other solicitor

• Your passport and/or driving licence
• A utility bill or bank statement dated within the last three months showing your current address. The following are acceptable items:
• Bank statement (current account or savings account only, NOT a credit card or mortgage statement). We can accept copy or picture of online bank statement provided it shows both the name and address
• Gas/electricity bill
• Phone bill
• HMRC or DWP letter

• Please provide the person who is certifying ID with the instructions you can find here. You may require to email or print out for the person certifying the ID
• You may be charged a small fee by the solicitor or justice of the peace.

Since the financial crisis, the requirements from lenders of the solicitors dealing with the remortgage process have become much more onerous. At the same time, our regulator the Law Society of Scotland has greatly emphasised with firms of solicitors under its regulation, the full extent of the money laundering regulations. These include a much wider definition of potential offences of which solicitors are to consider.

There is no doubt that the process for remortgaging is not completely “joined up”. Different lenders have different approaches but there is no single standard. That seems some way off and for the meantime we have to deal with the detail of the lender’s requirements and our interpretation of our regulator’s requirements.

Good point! There are two reasons. The first is that different remortgages trigger different responses. Broadly speaking remortgages involving properties that are currently mortgage free, circumstances where large capital sums are being released and expensive properties will trigger the need for Certified ID. The second aspect is that different solicitors interpret the requirements from regulators in different ways. The problem is that if a remortgage should ultimately result in a repossession, solicitors acting on behalf of the lender are forensic in considering whether the solicitor who dealt with the remortgage should have identified a problem. In that environment, there is a need for McVey and Murricane to adopt a sensibly cautious position. As in other areas, if there was a clearly agreed an objective standard it would make life a lot easier. However, such a standard does not exist.

Some lenders do not allow certified ID from a broker as part of their own underwriting requirements. Where certified ID from a broker is required it is essential that the broker is an appointed representative of an institution authorised by the FCA.

Ultimately, the lender requires us to carry out checks that satisfy their requirements and our regulator requires us to carry out checks that suit their requirements. As you can imagine in a very competitive fixed fee environment, we wish to deal with the remortgage as efficiently as possible so we are not carrying out any more work than we need to do. But the sanctions upon us are very considerable. If we do not meet the requirements of the lender we face a claim and potentially being removed from their panel. If we do not meet the requirements of our regulator then we potentially face disciplinary action. In any case we face severe legal consequences including consequences if we do not do this part of the job properly and there should be a subsequent issue.

We recognise that in many ways the authorities are focusing upon the wrong group of people when imposing these regulations and requirements. As is often the case, it is the individual requires to “jump through hoops” rather than the tax dodger or major fraudster. The direction of travel in this area is not good. Provided that it still applies after Brexit the next version of Money Laundering Regulations due in 2018 is much more imposing and extremely onerous.