Send the document
01Email the form and the lender's instructions; we confirm the fee and read it before you arrive.
Independent legal advice
A short, self-contained appointment where a solicitor with no interest in the transaction explains what you are signing and certifies that you understood it.
Typical timescale
Same or next working day
Fee basis
Fixed fee per certificate
Appointment
In person or by video with ID checks
Output
Certificate in your lender's own wording
01Independent legal advice
When a lender or solicitor asks for it
Lenders regularly require a document to be signed in front of a solicitor who is not acting for the borrower, so that nobody can later argue they were pressured or did not understand the consequences. The usual triggers are an adult occupier consent form, a personal guarantee, a deed of postponement, a family member contributing a deposit, or an equity release or transfer where one party gives up an interest.
The requirement is procedural but the consequences are not. An occupier consent form postpones your right to live in the property behind the lender's power to repossess it. A guarantee makes you personally liable for someone else's borrowing. Those are the points we make sure you have actually taken in before you sign.
02Independent legal advice
What the appointment involves
We read the document in advance, meet you without the other party present, explain in plain English what it does and what could go wrong, answer your questions, and then witness your signature and complete the certificate in the wording the lender requires. It usually takes under an hour.
We are genuinely independent: we do not act for the borrower, the lender or the other side on the transaction, and we will tell you plainly if we think you should not sign.
- Occupier consent and deferment of interest
- Personal and directors' guarantees
- Deeds of postponement and family deposit declarations
- Certificates in the lender's prescribed form
STEPSHow the matter runs
Every independent legal advice file follows the same sequence.
Identity checks
02Electronic verification or original photographic identification at the appointment.
The advice meeting
03Held privately, without the borrower or other party in the room.
Signature and certificate
04Signature witnessed, certificate completed and returned to the lender or solicitor the same day.
Questions we are asked most
No. The whole point of the certificate is independence, so a different firm must advise you where we act on the transaction itself. Equally, we are happy to advise where another firm is acting.
Property law, handled properly.
Need help with independent legal advice?
Send us the basic details and we will come back with a written quotation, the likely timescale and the name of the solicitor who will handle it.