You will have received an email from us referring to this page. Rightly and necessarily equity release transactions are highly regulated to protect the consumer. It is vital that you read this materially carefully. If these conditions are not followed it will delay your client's application.

Step 1: General instructions

We understand that you are acting for the Borrower. If you are not acting for the Borrower, please contact us immediately.

Do not contact the Lender directly regarding the Borrower’s proposed loan.

All communications should be sent to us directly

This transaction will progress under title and search insurance, and you are not required to provide any title responses or searches unless we specifically raise an issue within the observations.

We shall do our best to assist you and the Borrower to be able to complete when you would like to do so but that is dependent upon you complying with these instructions and our clients being able to fulfil all the criteria in relation to the proposed lending.

It is acknowledged that you are acting for the Borrower and that you will owe no duties to the lender beyond the specific undertakings, which have been or will be granted. However, you shall notify us if you are made aware prior to completion of any material changes to the information that you have previously provided to us.

At Completion we will remit the loan funds directly to your nominated Client Account. If funds require to be returned, the borrower will meet the cost of returning these.

We will submit the application for registration to the Land Register of Scotland

Important Points

• If the Borrower does not currently own the Property and you are instructed in connection with the purchase of the Property, please inform us immediately.

• If the title is currently recorded in the Sasine Register, you will be required to voluntary register that Property on behalf of the Borrower. You will need to provide an undertaking to deal with Sasines issues. You can find this at the bottom of this page.

• If there is a prior security over the Property, please provide us with the Borrower’s existing mortgage account number to allow us to obtain a redemption statement. If the security has previously been redeemed, we will require written confirmation from the previous lender that the security has been repaid.

Step 2: Contents of our initial communication

Offer of Loan;

This is available from the email sending you this form. Please check all details of the Mortgage Offer and let us know of any inaccuracies as soon as possible as a new Offer will have to be issued.

Your attention is drawn to any special conditions within the Mortgage Offer. We will require evidence that any such condition will be satisfied by completion.

Standard Security

Land Certificate and Plan (only if not currently Sasine)

Legal Report

You must hand to your clients the current tariff list and the mortgage terms and conditions annexed to the mortgage offer of our covering email.

Step 3: Documents you must download

Lifetime Mortgage Solicitors certificate;

The Solicitors certificate must be signed by the Borrower and the solicitor who has advised the Borrower.

Identification Verification form;

The Lender requires confirmation of identify for each borrower and you must compete and return the form.

Declaration of Circumstances and Authority to Proceed;

To be completed and returned by the Borrower.

Certificate of Comprehensive Building Insurance;

The Lender requires the insurance details to be completed or alternatively the Borrower can provide a copy of the building insurance policy provided the interest of the Lender life is noted on the policy.

Step 4: Please read the following

Guidance Notes for Solicitors;

The guide provides an outline of the lifetime mortgage, the legal framework and details of the application process.

The Solicitor’s Certificate
You will receive copies of all the literature provided to your client in relation to this transaction. You are required to explain the terms and implications of the plan to your client and, having done so, sign the Certificate. The provider will not complete the transaction until they have received a Certificate which has been signed and completed by both you and your client(s), whereby you confirm that you have drawn your client’s(s’) attention to the risks of entering into an equity release transaction and your client(s) confirms that he/they has/have been given the advice set out in the Certificate.

Guidance on Independence
Clients must use a legal adviser who is independent of the provider’s solicitor. If you are advising a client in relation to an equity release transaction, the Equity Release Council requires you to consider whether you are independent of the provider firm or the adviser advising the client on the transaction, by following the Solicitors (Scotland) Standards of Conduct, which are contained in Rule B1 of the Law Society of Scotland’s Practice Rules 2011, which came into force on 1 November 2011, as amended from time to time for transactions which take place within Scotland;; AND, in all cases these guidance notes on the Equity Release Council’s Rules & Guidance

Payment of Fees
Whilst you may make payments to an introducer for genuine marketing initiatives, such payments are subject to this guidance. You may not make such a payment, or give other consideration, to a third party who refers clients to you, unless you can show that the payment is wholly unconnected with the referral of any specific client to you. You are therefore not permitted to pay referral fees on a case-by-case basis. Additionally, payments may not be calculated or aggregated on the basis of the number of cases referred.

This also applies regardless of how any referral fee payment (or other consideration) is described if it is connected with the payment of fees on a case-by-case-basis. For example, this would apply to the payment of administrative or marketing fees, payments described as "disbursements" which are not proper disbursements, and panel membership fees. "Other consideration" might include, for example, the provision of services and secondment of staff to the introducer, or an agreement to purchase services or products from the introducer (where such provision or purchase is a condition of referrals on a case-by-case basis being made). For the avoidance of doubt, certain marketing payments which are not connected with payment on a case-by-case basis are permitted, subject to the regulatory obligations of the parties concerned.
If the customer chooses not to instruct their own legal adviser, the adviser or provider (as appropriate) may offer the name of at least one local law firm which has knowledge of equity release products. The adviser or provider must ensure that no pressure or financial inducement is involved in directing customers to any particular law firm either by them or the intermediaries recommending their products.

Receipt of Payments
If you are acting on behalf of the client you may not receive payments or other consideration from the adviser or provider if that payment is dependent on the completion of an equity release transaction.

Sasine Procedure

1. Please transpose the text below on to your headed notepaper and sign it. A scanned version of the signed document should be uploaded in the section provided below.
2. Please order a plans report level 3 from the Keeper (not another company) and send that to us
3. Please send us your voluntary registration application form and such deeds as are necessary to check the likelihood of Land Registration being successful.
4. The original should be sent to us with the signed standard security

ON THE HEADED NOTEPAPER OF THE GRANTING SOLICITOR

Our Client:
Lender: [name of lender]
Property:
Account Number:

We hereby undertake: -

1. To forward to you before drawdown of loan funds the original documentation required in respect of our client’s voluntary application to register their title in the Land Register of Scotland (as a requirement in terms of the Land Registration Act 2012 relating to closure of the Sasine Register) together with our application forms in respect thereof.

2. Forward by e-mail to you the electronic link from the Registers of Scotland within 3 working days of receipt of same by us showing the application for voluntary registration as having been submitted for registration.

3. Forward by e-mail to you the electronic link from the Registers of Scotland within 3 working days of receipt of same by us, and within six months of the date hereof, showing the updated Title Sheet with your client’s Standard Security as first ranking charge and our client as registered proprietor, such Title Sheet to be unaffected by any deed, decree or diligence given effect to in the Land Register (other than the Security in favour of the Lender).

4. In respect of all post settlement matters to provide all assistance that is reasonably required by us to ensure registration of the title and the Standard Security in favour of the Lender and to procure a valid marketable title in favour of the Our Client and a valid marketable security in favour of the Lender;

5. In the event of your application to register the Lender’s security being rejected as a result of our application being rejected by the Registers of Scotland we undertake to meet the cost of any rejection charges levied by the Registers of Scotland on you in this respect.

Yours faithfully

Signed ………………………………………….. Dated …………………………………
[Authorised Signatory]

Company: …………………………………………….
Print Firms Name