Hodge Conveyancing Panel Information

The Law Society of Scotland has advised that solicitors should check their panel status with lenders before accepting client instructions to act. The advice is lender-agnostic as it does not relate specifically to solicitors on the Hodge conveyancing panel. The suggestion arises from the practice of a number of mortgage lenders who remove solicitors from their panels without prior notice as part of their panel management system, which can lead to some solicitors discovering this only once instructed. This is sensible advice as a client finding out midway through a transaction that their lawyer is not on the approved lender panel is very frustrating and can lead to complaints. Many online consumer forums contain posts where someone is complaining about finding that their lawyer is not on a lender conveyancing panel. Such forums include mumsnet.com

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 Hodge conveyancing panel. Typically lenders need to have full knowledge of a firm including (but not limited to):

Full disciplinary history for each conveyancing solicitor

Full complaints history for each licensed conveyancer

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

List of fee-earners who are foreign qualified

House price discrepancies (declared to lender vs. registered at Land Registry)

Charge registration history

Solicitor

Areas of Law covered by the firm

Firm name, address and contact details including all branches (including evidence of existence through risk-based physical visits and Google Streetview checks)

Whether the firm has ever applied for accreditation and the outcome of the application

What you should do largely depends on the reason that your firm has been removed off the Hodge 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 Hodge conveyancing panel.

Please tread carefully here as what you are proposing may not be acceptable to the mortgage company. It is possible that you (as a non-panel firm) or the mortgage applicant are not at liberty instruct a panel firm of your choice. Many lenders make it clear to their panel firms that where a non-panel member firm is instructed by one of their mortgage applicants, the lender must appoint a panel firm to carry out its instructions and to liaise with the borrower's conveyancer. You also need to make the costs implications and potential for delay very clear to your client.

In the circumstances please explain on the form what action you have taken to discover the reasons behind cancellation of your Hodge panel status. In particular please provide details if you have received communications from the lender. E.G. before cessation of your panel membership did you receive any letters or calls from the lender advising you as to their reasons?

You would be advised to communicate with Hodge to obtain standard documents. The CML Handbook contains a specific question for banks to reveal who to contact to obtain standard documents. Hodge in their Part 2’s state: You will need to quote the firm’s Hodge conveyancing panel number.