A Careless Mistake…by a legal firm

Dear Readers,

I would like to share with you a recent case that I attended.

Mandy (not her real name), bought an apartment in Penang 3 months ago. She went to a bank and got her loan approved. The next step, she needs to engage a lawyer to represent her on the sale. She chooses my legal firm for the said transaction, but the banker told her that our firm is not listed as the Banks panel.

As this is her 1st house purchase she just follow the banker’s recommendation and use his chossen legal firm. Ironically, she did not check with me as my firm is in the ad-hoc panel of the bank and we have done many cases for them. So, why did the banker cheated her and told her we cannot do the loan documentation. Simple, a lot of legal firms offer kickbacks to bankers for reffering such cases.

The worst have yet to come. She signed all the legal documentation and the loan is due for release. What happen is that, the legal firm did not do a bankruptcy or ctos check on the Vendor. It turns out that the property is already in auction. Such a careless mictake. This should have been done on the very 1st step before execution of Sales & Purchase Agreement. At the end, the loan cannot be disbursed. Who is to be blame for this?

How I know about this case is because, Mandy just appointed our legal firm to handle her documentation as she has found a new apartment. I really pity her having to go through such an odeal. She in an innocent party.

From the Desk of
 
Michael Yeoh

To all of you out there, please make sure that you check throughly before listenning to anyone.