This article contains promotional content .(September 2022) |
Company type | Private company |
---|---|
Industry | Insurance |
Founded | 1994 |
Headquarters | , |
Products | Title insurance |
Number of employees | 90+ (2019) |
Website | cli |
Countrywide Legal Indemnities is a British title insurance company. The company is based in Norwich, Norfolk, United Kingdom. The company is an underwriting agency that works with conveyancing professionals.
Countrywide Legal Indemnities as an agent for the American insurer Liberty Mutual, which supplies legal indemnity insurance and protection to individuals and firms purchasing property or land with a title defect.
The directors of Countrywide Legal Indemnities [1] also operate two other legal indemnity insurance companies: Isis Conveyancing Insurance Specialists [2] and Blue Button Legal Indemnities. [3]
The company was founded in 1994.
In 2006, the Solicitors Journal named Countrywide as being "one of the country's leading intermediaries". [4] In 2007, the Sunday Times listed Countrywide Legal in 34th place in its list of "Best 100 Companies". [5]
In 1997, Countrywide became the first legal indemnity provider to be endorsed by The Law Society, providing its members with a Defective Title insurance Scheme and other related indemnities on their behalf. This endorsement lasted until 2009, and the endorsement has since passed to a competitor, First Title Insurance. [6]
Since 2001, local authorities in England have been testing land for harmful chemicals under the new environmental measures that were introduced and this has encouraged firms such as Countrywide to develop policies to protect against the threat of historical contaminated land. [7]
Countrywide Legal Indemnities also launched a Japanese knotweed indemnity policy in 2015 due to changes on the TA6 property form, and the increasing number of properties affected by knotweed. [8] However, these policies will only cover properties that are not affected by knotweed and then only for a few years, [9] raising questions as to how useful the insurance really is.
Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to protect against the risk of a contingent or uncertain loss.
In contract law, an indemnity is a contractual obligation of one party to compensate the loss incurred by another party due to the relevant acts of the indemnitor or any other party. The duty to indemnify is usually, but not always, coextensive with the contractual duty to "hold harmless" or "save harmless". In contrast, a "guarantee" is an obligation of one party to another party to perform the promise of a relevant other party if that other party defaults.
Reynoutria japonica, synonyms Fallopia japonica and Polygonum cuspidatum, is a species of herbaceous perennial plant in the knotweed and buckwheat family Polygonaceae. Common names include Japanese knotweed and Asian knotweed. It is native to East Asia in Japan, China and Korea. In North America and Europe, the species has successfully established itself in numerous habitats, and is classified as a pest and invasive species in several countries. The plant is popular with beekeepers, and its young stems are edible, making it an increasingly popular foraged vegetable with a flavour described as lemony rhubarb.
In English civil litigation, costs are the lawyers' fees and disbursements of the parties.
In law, conveyancing is the transfer of legal title of real property from one person to another, or the granting of an encumbrance such as a mortgage or a lien. A typical conveyancing transaction has two major phases: the exchange of contracts and completion.
An escrow is a contractual arrangement in which a third party receives and disburses money or property for the primary transacting parties, with the disbursement dependent on conditions agreed to by the transacting parties. Examples include an account established by a broker for holding funds on behalf of the broker's principal or some other person until the consummation or termination of a transaction; or, a trust account held in the borrower's name to pay obligations such as property taxes and insurance premiums. The word derives from the Old French word escroue, meaning a scrap of paper or a scroll of parchment; this indicated the deed that a third party held until a transaction was completed.
Title insurance is a form of indemnity insurance, predominantly found in the United States and Canada, that insures against financial loss from defects in title to real property and from the invalidity or unenforceability of mortgage loans. Unlike some land registration systems in countries outside the United States, US states' recorders of deeds generally do not guarantee indefeasible title to those recorded titles. Title insurance will defend against a lawsuit attacking the title or reimburse the insured for the actual monetary loss incurred up to the dollar amount of insurance provided by the policy.
Stamp duty is a tax that is levied on single property purchases or documents. A physical revenue stamp had to be attached to or impressed upon the document to show that stamp duty had been paid before the document was legally effective. More modern versions of the tax no longer require an actual stamp.
Home insurance, also commonly called homeowner's insurance, is a type of property insurance that covers a private residence. It is an insurance policy that combines various personal insurance protections, which can include losses occurring to one's home, its contents, loss of use, or loss of other personal possessions of the homeowner, as well as liability insurance for accidents that may happen at the home or at the hands of the homeowner within the policy territory.
In most Commonwealth countries, a conveyancer is a specialist lawyer who specialises in the legal aspects of buying and selling real property, or conveyancing. A conveyancer can also be a solicitor, licensed conveyancer, or a fellow of the Institute of Legal Executives.
His Majesty's Land Registry is a non-ministerial department of His Majesty's Government, created in 1862 to register the ownership of land and property in England and Wales. It reports to the Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government. The registry contains 87% of land in the UK as of 2019.
A licensed conveyancer is a specialist legal professional in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia or South Africa who has been trained to deal with all aspects of property law.
Connells Limited, trading as Connells Group, is a British estate agency and property services company headquartered in Leighton Buzzard, and a subsidiary of Skipton Building Society.
The Lands Tribunal for Scotland is a tribunal with jurisdiction over land and property in Scotland, relating to title obligations, compulsory purchase and other private rights. The Tribunal was established under the Lands Tribunal Act 1949, which also created the separate Lands Tribunal in England and Wales and Northern Ireland.
Professional liability insurance (PLI), also called professional indemnity insurance (PII) but more commonly known as errors & omissions (E&O) in the US, is a form of liability insurance which helps protect professional advising, consulting, and service-providing individuals and companies from bearing the full cost of defending against a negligence claim made by a client in a civil lawsuit. The coverage focuses on alleged failure to perform on the part of, financial loss caused by, and error or omission in the service or product sold by the policyholder. These are causes for legal action that would not be covered by a more general liability insurance policy which addresses more direct forms of harm. Professional liability insurance may take on different forms and names depending on the profession, especially medical and legal, and is sometimes required under contract by other businesses that are the beneficiaries of the advice or service.
Document automation is the design of systems and workflows that assist in the creation of electronic documents. These include logic-based systems that use segments of pre-existing text and/or data to assemble a new document. This process is increasingly used within certain industries to assemble legal documents, contracts and letters. Document automation systems can also be used to automate all conditional text, variable text, and data contained within a set of documents.
Legal protection insurance (LPI), also known as legal expenses insurance (LEI) or simply legal insurance, is a particular class of insurance which facilitates access to law and justice by providing legal advice and covering the legal costs of a dispute, regardless of whether the case is brought by or against the policyholder. Depending on the national rules, legal protection insurers can also represent the policyholder out-of-court or even in-court.
Public Access Legal Support (PALS) is a highly specific category of legal service providers in England & Wales that are distinct from solicitors, barristers and paralegals, and that operate only within the framework of the Public Access Scheme.
The missives of sale, in Scots property law, are a series of formal letters between the two parties, the Buyer and the Seller, containing the contract of sale for the transfer of corporeal heritable property (land) in Scotland. The term 'land' in this article includes buildings and other structures upon land.
Land registration in Scots law is a system of public registration of land, and associated real rights. Scotland has one of the oldest systems of land registration in the world. Registration of deeds is important as it constitutes the third stage of the creation and transfer of real rights.
In a rapidly changing housing market, Andrew Towler finds out about legal indemnity options for conveyancers