Dudley Building Society Conveyancing Panel Information

Criteria differ from lender to lender. We do not hold specific requirements relating to the questions raised as part of the application to be on the Dudley Building Society conveyancing panel. Typically lenders need to have full knowledge of a firm including (but not limited to):

Full disciplinary history for each licensed conveyancer

Full career history for each licensed conveyancer including registration date with Council of Licensed Conveyancers

Number of lender conveyancing panels the firm is currently on

List of all those staff who work within the conveyancing team

Number of partners per branch of the firm

Full complaints history for each licensed conveyancer

Areas of Law covered by the firm

List of fee-earners who are foreign qualified

The percentage of the firm’s business which is conveyancing (broken down into sale

Whether any lender has ever made a claim against the firm’s PII cover

We can't comment specifically on Dudley Building Society. Many major lenders are now introducing ‘file auditing’ as standard practice in relation to completed matters. This raises questions of confidentiality in relation to the borrower and the purpose to which the results of such audits will be put. The starting point is to remember that the file does not belong to your firm, it belongs to the ‘client’. But, of course, we will normally have two clients – the buyer and the lender - and you will owe a duty of confidentiality to each. So basically, you have to separate the file and just send the lender the parts solely relating to themselves. But, of course, as this will basically be correspondence with the lender, mortgage instructions etc.

Check with your COLP but a firm should not send the complete conveyancing file without the buyer client’s express consent – and if she is in dispute with the lender he is hardly likely to agree. However, if the lender can establish a prima facie case of fraud, then you may be under an obligation to disclose the whole file.

The emerging convention is that lenders are including an authority to disclose in loan application forms to counter this problem. Mortgage Express v Sawali, [2010] EWHC 3054 (Ch) indicates that such provisions are valid. Please click here for more information about that case.

The answer to this question really depends on the reason that your firm has been removed off the Dudley 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 Dudley Building Society conveyancing panel.

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 a complete picture of what has gone on.

You would be advised to contact Dudley Building Society to obtain standard documents. The The Council of Mortgage Lenders Handbook has a specific question for banks to establish who to contact to obtain standard documents. Dudley Building Society in their Part 2’s state: You will need to quote your Dudley Building Society conveyancing panel number.