Madam, - It is regrettable that a cloud has been cast over the solicitors' profession by the reported activities of two of its members. This makes our job even more difficult because our existence depends on the trust which our clients have in us.
I would point out that the banks and the conveyancing process have been dependent on the personal undertakings of solicitors for over 10 years now, and the current cases are the only two purported instances of abuse of this system. A solicitor gives an undertaking as to title, which is backed up by our personal insurance, and this ensures that properties can be bought and sold efficiently and quickly.
However, registration in the Land Registry can be delayed by up to two years in Dublin, and with such a gap, it gives an opportunity for a deviant solicitor to mess around with the mortgage process.
Solicitors have been under intense pressure on many fronts over the last few years, their numbers have doubled in 10 years, ensuring a cheaper service, but not necessarily a better service. The banks have taken full advantage of this situation, by insisting on certificates of title from the solicitor, and paying not a penny for this onerous commitment. When a solicitor wants to take up title documents or get a mortgage vacate document, there will be a delay by the banks, and a fee of up to €80 charged by the banks to the solicitor.
This is exploitation by the banks, and, since they do not pay us a penny for putting our insurance on the line by certifying title for them, well, they morally deserve their present difficulties.
When the banks pay a fair fee for the risk to a solicitor's insurance, then they will get some sympathy from me.
The Law Society has allowed this situation to develop in which a solicitor is acting for both the client and for the bank, when the interests of the bank and the client may conflict. This is wrong, and must be changed urgently, so that we act for our clients only, and for their benefit only. - Yours, etc,
MUREDACH DOHERTY, Solicitor, Camden Street, Dublin 2.
Madam, - Ian Long, (Opinion Page, October 31st) states that the solicitor's undertaking is the key document in a system designed to speed up the process of buying and mortgaging a house.
In this document, the solicitor undertakes to certify the title to the property in question and to mortgage it to the bank as security for a loan in return for an advance on funds before the mortgage is in place.
It should be noted that this is the system which operates for home loans and in some cases for a one-off residential/investment loan but in my experience as a practising solicitor it never operates for substantial commercial loans and for it to occur where a solicitor acts in his own cause in development and speculation is unheard of. In addition to instructing their own solicitors, lending institutions, in their advancement of loans to clients, follow certain principles, among which are the following:
• A valuation of the premises to ensure the loan being advanced will be well secured on the premises;
• Generally, a surveyors' report to ensure the premises is structurally good and exists, together with a map in many instances.
• The lending institution always instruct their own solicitors in a commercial transaction or investment properties.
• Full compliance with preconditions in the letter of loan sanction which usually relate to prior charges, insurance, direct debit mandates and the repayment of previous loans and non-release of the funds until the mortgage is signed and exchanged with the documents for the advance.
• Searches being carried out to ensure no prior mortgages or judgments are registered against the borrower and that the borrower is solvent and credit-worthy.
Failing to follow their own procedures exposes lending institutions to a high risk of being charged with reckless lending and one would have to ask the officials in charge of the loans the reason why these procedures were not followed.
The policy adopted by the Anglo Irish Bank is the usual, not the unusual, policy in commercial trading. - Yours, etc,
VINCENT CROWLEY, Solicitor, Bow Street, Dublin 7.