Saffron Building Society Conveyancing Panel Information

The Council of Mortgage Lenders is an association rather than a regulator and therefore will not advise on complaints against lenders. You can of course contact Lexsure to see if we can help.

What you should do largely depends on the reason that your firm has been removed off the Saffron Building Society conveyancing panel. The top 3 reasons are as follows:

1. lack of transactions
2. the lawyer is a sole practitioner
3. as part of the HSBC panel reduction.

In these three circumstances it is unlikely that you would expected to take any action. Disclosure and other compliance considerations are more likely to be relevant if the reason for removal is due to breaches of lender requirements or allegations of fraud or negligence. Whether the reasoning should trigger a disclosable 'material' breach will depend on the firm and the circumstances around possible failures to comply with the SRA Authorisation Rules, and the SRA will judge each case on its own merits. Factors such as the detriment or risk of detriment to clients, the scale of the issue and overall impact on the firm will need to be considered in deciding whether a failure is 'material'. As the COLP you will need systems to identify patterns of breaches. Even if you don't consider there to be regulatory implications the firms COFA should give some thought to whether she/he needs to take any action as result of being removed from the Saffron Building Society conveyancing panel.

When a solicitor is acting for both Saffron Building Society and borrower there is potential for conflicts to arise. You owe duties to both clients. All information received by you from your client is confidential and cannot be disclosed without the client’s consent. In the situation you find yourself in if the purchaser will not consent to the information being passed on to the lender the solicitor must cease to act for the Saffron Building Society and it may well be prudent you to cease to act for the purchaser as well. You can not tell the Saffron Building Society the reason for termination of the retainer over and above the fact that a conflict has arisen. The fact that you can no longer act should alert even the most somnambulistic of lenders that something is wrong with the borrower and/or purchase. The fact that you have disinstructed yourself should not affect your Saffron Building Society conveyancing panel status.

13 potential conveyancing clients attempt to locate a conveyancing practitioner on the Saffron Building Society panel on a monthly basis in Hendon. The lenderpanel directory service team who will show you how your firm can be found by those searching for conveyancing in Hendon.

Your insurance brokers are your best port of call to address this question. The chances are that on the basis that you have not been removed for fraud or negligence reasons that there will be little or no impact. The main reason why a firm would be removed off of a lender panel is due to low volume of conveyancing cases although there may be a number of criteria for Saffron Building Society solicitor panel membership. Please remember that it is always important that you complete your insurance forms accurately.

You would be advised to communicate with Saffron Building Society to obtain standard documents. The CML Handbook has an explicit section for lenders to establish who to contact to obtain standard documents. Saffron Building Society in their Part 2’s state: It helps to quote the firm’s Saffron Building Society solicitors panel number.