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Abbey axes 6,000 solicitors from its panel

Wednesday 25 March 2009 01:00 GMT
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Homebuyers taking out a mortgage with Abbey could face additional charges of up to £250 after the bank reduced the number of solicitors it allows to carry out work on its behalf.

Abbey has knocked about 6,000 local solicitors off its residential mortgage conveyancing panel, meaning they can no longer handle the bank's side of the home-buying process when acting for consumers taking out an Abbey mortgage.

Normally, a solicitor acting for a buyer also looks after the lender's interests in the transaction, such as ensuring that the mortgage money was paid to the seller's solicitor and that the mortgage was registered with the Land Registry.

Abbey said it still had 18,000 approved solicitors, and had removed the other firms from its panel because they had not carried out enough transactions for it over the past year.

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