Independent legal advice certificates: why the lender insists, and what it costs.
Short answer: the lender is protecting itself from you later saying you did not understand what you signed. Following the House of Lords' guidance in Etridge, banks require a solicitor's certificate before certain guarantees and charges, especially where one person's property secures another's debt. Our remote ILA starts at £299, with the certificate the lender needs signed by a Solicitor of England and Wales, usually within days.
When you will be sent for ILA
Personal guarantees for company borrowing, a spouse or family member's property securing business debt, occupier consent forms, transfers at undervalue, and directors' guarantees on commercial leases. The common thread: someone is taking on risk for someone else's benefit, and the lender wants proof you were advised independently.
What actually happens
You send the documents, we review them properly, one scheduled video appointment covers the advice, you ask anything, and the certificate is signed and returned to the lender's solicitors. Remote throughout; no office visit anywhere in England and Wales. Guarantee ILA from £399; standard certificates from £299, fixed in writing before you pay.
Can the certificate be refused?
The advice is genuinely independent: if the documents are unusually dangerous for you, you will be told so in plain words before you sign, which is precisely the point of the exercise, and occasionally the most valuable £399 a guarantor ever spends.
Fixed fee agreed in writing before any work begins, written reply within 24 hours, handled entirely in writing. Send your enquiry or WhatsApp +44 7822 014 066.