April Mortgages Conveyancing Panel Information

As is the case with the Law Society the Council of Licensed Conveyancers has begun discussions with lenders and their representative bodies to see whether and how the risks that lenders wish to mitigate could be addressed through the regulatory framework rather than via ad hoc arrangements that can differ from lender to lender. We expect that that the CLC have been in touch with lenders such as April Mortgages in the recent past.

You will be aware of the trend in recent years for lenders such as April Mortgages to take a much more pro-active approach in relation to the management and make up of their conveyancer panels. The knock on effect of this is that it is more likely that there will be a higher number of cases where a conveyancer is not on the April Mortgages panel. The situation that you find yourself in is where your client’s purchaser has his/her own lawyer and April Mortgages have appointed a separate lawyer to act on their behalf where the new CML Part 3 requirements apply. Section 11.1 of the UK Finance Lenders’ Handbook Part 3 requires April Mortgages’s panel solicitor to ‘ ...transfer the mortgage advance directly to the Seller’s conveyancer. The Seller’s conveyancer must be required to hold the mortgage advance on the terms of the required undertaking. The example borrower’s conveyancer’s undertaking letter includes a specific example of the seller’s undertaking’. You should expect to be advised to received the mortgage advance directly from the conveyancing solicitors for April Mortgages. You will no doubt be required to undertake directly to April Mortgages’s solicitors to discharge any charges secured on the property and to send directly to them the executed transfer and any other documents required to enable us to effect registration. Please remember to carefully consider undertakings in accordance with your firm’s protocol and record them in your undertakings logg. Please remember that as well as this breach of this undertaking having regulatory and compliance implications it’s breach could also result in your firm being removed off the April Mortgages conveyancing panel.

You have a number of obligations in this regard which are to followed if you wish to comply with your lender client’s instructions as set out in the UK Finance Lenders’ Handbook. (I) You must take reasonable steps to verify that there are no discrepancies between the description of the property as valued and the title and other documents which a reasonably competent conveyancer should obtain, and, if there are, you must tell April Mortgages immediately. Second, You should take reasonable steps to verify that the assumptions stated by the valuer about the title (for example, its tenure, easements, boundaries and restrictions on its use) in the valuation and as stated in April Mortgages’s mortgage offer are correct. If they are not, please let April Mortgages know as soon as possible as it will be necessary for April Mortgages to check with the valuer whether the valuation needs to be revised. April Mortgages conveyancing panel solicitors are not expected to assume the role of valuer. April Mortgages are simply trying to ensure that the valuer has valued the property based on correct information. Thirdly, April Mortgages recommend that you should advise the borrower that there may be defects in the property which are not revealed by the inspection carried out by their valuer and there may be omissions or inaccuracies in the report which do not matter to them as a lender but which would matter to the borrower. April Mortgages recommend that, if we send a copy of a valuation report that April Mortgages have obtained, you should also advise the borrower that the borrower should not rely on the report in deciding whether to proceed with the purchase and that he obtains his own more detailed report on the condition and value of the property, based on a fuller inspection such as a homebuyers survey or structural survey. If you do not receive a copy of the valuation you can always ask for a copy of one from April Mortgages or the borrower. You still need to comply with the UK Finance Lenders’ Handbook Requirement relating to valuation reports even if you don't receive one directly. Failure to comply not only runs the risk of facing a claim by the lender but also being removed from the April Mortgages conveyancing panel

With lenders and property lawyers working so closely together it is surprising that there has not been much call for the introduction of a bit of transparency regarding not just the figures for the April Mortgages conveyancing panel but for all mortgage panel listings

We would recommend that you supply details of the date of removal, information on the reason for removal, date of appeal and any reason given for reinstatement. This should not adversely impact your application but gives the Law Society viability as to what has occured.

You should communicate with April Mortgages to obtain standard documents. The CML Handbook includes an explicit question for banks to set out who to contact to obtain standard documents. April Mortgages in their Part 2’s state: You will need to quote your April Mortgages solicitors panel number.