Halifax Loans Conveyancing Panel Information

The criteria to join the Halifax Loans conveyancing panel is likely to be fairly detailed and is unlikely to include signing up to LENDERmonitor alerts.

The CML Part II requirements of Halifax Loans are silent on this. Most lenders deal with the issue of file retention via their Terms of panel appointment where they generally provide that for evidential purposes, the firm must keep the file for at least of 6 years from the date of the mortgage. Data imagining is normally suitable compliance with this requirement. Many lenders point out in that it is the practice of some fraudsters to demand the conveyancing file on completion in order to destroy evidence that may later be used against them. It is therefore important to retain these documents to protect Halifax Loans’s interest. To be absolutely sure of Halifax Loans requirements in this regard please check the Terms and Conditions of Halifax Loans’s conveyancing panel membership.

When a solicitor is acting for both Halifax Loans 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 Halifax Loans and it may well be prudent you to cease to act for the purchaser as well. You can not tell the Halifax Loans 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 Halifax Loans conveyancing panel status.

You will be aware of the trend in recent years for lenders such as Halifax Loans 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 Halifax Loans panel. The situation that you find yourself in is where your client’s purchaser has his/her own lawyer and Halifax Loans 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 Halifax Loans’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 Halifax Loans. You will no doubt be required to undertake directly to Halifax Loans’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 Halifax Loans conveyancing panel.

The best placed professionals to answer this question are your insurance brokers. 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 Halifax Loans solicitor panel membership. Please remember that it is always important that you complete your insurance forms accurately.

You would be advised to contact Halifax Loans to obtain standard documents. The CML Handbook includes a specific section for banks to cite who to contact to obtain standard documents. Halifax Loans in their Part 2’s state: Don’t forget to disclose the firm’s Halifax Loans solicitors panel reference.