Clydesdale Bank Conveyancing Panel Information

We only know of two or three banks that operate a separate conveyancing panel where the mortgage advance is over a certain amount. You should nevertheless check directly with Clydesdale Bank. At one stage HSBC would only allow Sole practitioners to act for them where the mortgage was below £150,000. We are not sure if HSBC still operate such a condition. In your case it is best to check with Clydesdale Bank

What you should do largely depends on the reason that your firm has been removed off the Clydesdale Bank 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 compliance officer 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 Clydesdale Bank conveyancing panel.

The key here is the caveat ‘more onerous’. You have to try and take an objective view as to whether the Terms relating to the Clydesdale Bank conveyancing appointment (or other terms for other lenders) are ‘more onerous’ than the UK Finance Lenders’ Handbook Conditions. Depending on the Terms you may need to provide details on your renewal form. If you are in any doubt please call your broker to discuss before moving forward on this question.

We would recommend that you provide details of the date of removal, information on the reason for removal, date of appeal and any reason given for reinstatement. This should not negatively affect your application but gives the CQS team viability as to what has happened.

You need to contact Clydesdale Bank to obtain standard documents. The CML Handbook contains a specific question for banks to establish who to contact to obtain standard documents. Clydesdale Bank in their Part 2’s state: It is likely that you will need to disclose your Clydesdale Bank conveyancing panel number.