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The 2009 certificate-of-title system for residential mortgage lending agreed between the Law Society and the participating lending institutions named in the guidelines to that system sets out the following agreed time limits within which lending institutions are to do the following for borrowers’ solicitors:

• Provide deeds on ATR within ten working days of receipt of a written request – Clause 4(a) and (b),
• Provide redemption figures within ten working days of receipt of a written request – Clause 5(b),
• Release the borrower’s solicitor from his/her undertaking within ten working days of lodgement by the solicitor of title deeds and certificate of title – Clause 21(d),
• Furnish release/ discharge/ vacate within one month of receipt of redemption payment or of receipt of a written request for the release/ discharge/ vacate – Clause 23(a).

If a lending institution does not meet the above time limits, Clause 24 of the 2009 guidelines sets out the procedure for resolving delays on the part of the lender – essentially a complaint process against the lending institution that includes issuing a warning, initiating a customer complaint within the lending institution, and, if still not satisfied, making a complaint to the Office of the Financial Services Ombudsman. The committee has provided sample letters of complaint for the assistance of practitioners – these are available in the precedents area and the Conveyancing Committee’s page on the Law Society’s website.

There may be other instances outside the certificate-of-title system in which a cause of complaint against a lending institution may arise in relation to other matters to do with a client’s loan.

A number of practitioners have written to the Conveyancing Committee indicating that the Office of the Financial Services Ombudsman will deal with such complaints lodged by a solicitor only if they are made by the solicitor on behalf of, or as agent of, the client. Solicitors should therefore ensure that:

1. They state that they are making the complaint on behalf of, and as agent of, the client,
2. They obtain, at the outset of a transaction, the irrevocable authority of the client to process such a complaint in the name of the client in the event that same becomes necessary. This might be covered by a widely-worded initial letter of engagement or by a specific form of authority,
3. They obtain, at the outset of the transaction, the agreement of the client for that client to sign the Complaint Form that is required by the Ombudsman’s office.

The necessity for the authority and the complaints process should be explained to the client, including the fact that the solicitor, in the course of the transaction, may assume the burden of an undertaking given for the benefit of the client in order to complete the client’s transaction.