Loughborough Building Society Conveyancing Panel Information

Unlike the CML the Building Society Mortgage Instructions deal with this. Section A.12 states ‘In order to act on our behalf your firm or company must be a member of our conveyancing panel provided we are a society that operates one – see specific requirements for details of our arrangements. The Special Requirements state:

You must also comply with the terms and conditions of your Loughborough Building Society solicitor panel appointment.

The BSA, as is the case with the CML do not maintain historic of Specific Requirements. We would advise that you make a request of Loughborough Building Society directly.

The fact of the matter is that estate agents are suffering if their clients start out on the buying process having appointed a conveyancer who is not on the panel with the purchaser’s chosen lender. Many conveyancing firms are only discovering when they begin working on a case that they are no longer able to work with that lender. Given the inevitable resultant delays in the transaction the chances of an abortive deal increases dramatically. in the circumstances there is understandable anguish on the part of the estate agent as a result of the lost time should the client have to change solicitors lawyers.

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

• List of all those who can sign off the Certificate Of Title
• Whether the firm has ever applied for accreditation and the outcome of the application
• House price discrepancies (declared to lender vs. registered at Land Registry)
• Full disciplinary history for each conveyancing solicitor
• Full career history for each licensed conveyancer including registration date with Council of Licensed Conveyancers
• Firm name, address and contact details including all branches (including evidence of existence through risk-based physical visits and Google Streetview checks)
• Summary of annual accounts
• Whether any lender has ever made a claim against the firm’s PII cover
• Whether the firm has ever accepted instructions in respect of property clubs and investment schemes
• Whether the firm is able to operate in other jurisdictions

When a solicitor is acting for both Loughborough Building Society 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 your situation, if the purchaser will not consent to the information being passed on to the lender, the solicitor must cease to act for Loughborough Building Society and it may well be prudent for you to cease to act for the purchaser as well. You must not inform Loughborough Building Society of 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 Loughborough Building Society conveyancing panel status.

You have a number of obligations in this regard which are to be followed if you wish to comply with your lender client’s instructions as set out in the BSA Mortgage Instructions. First, You must take reasonable steps to verify that there are no discrepancies between the description of the property as compared to an address that is no longer valid.

The BSA Mortgage Instructions don't specifically deal with Solar Panels but it would be prudent as approved solicitors for Loughborough Building Society to raise the issue with them (as you would if the UK Finance Lenders’ Handbook applied). In any event you need to raise the appropriate questions for your buyer client.

BSA lenders do not come within the top 20 lenders in terms of frequency of questions. The most popular lender panels in terms of questions are as follows:

• Santander Conveyancing Panel
• National Westminster Bank Conveyancing Panel
• Royal Bank of Scotland Conveyancing Panel
• HSBC Conveyancing Panel
• Lloyds Conveyancing Panel