Mansfield 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 Mansfield Building Society solicitor panel appointment.

The Building Society Association Mortgage Instructions applicable to a solicitor on the Mansfield Building Society conveyancing panel indicates that when a further advance is required for alterations or improvements to the property we will not normally instruct a member of the Mansfield Building Society conveyancing panel but if you are instructed the appropriate provisions of the BSA mortgage instruction will need to be adhered to .

If you are a conveyancer and have a concern relating to the mortgage instructions, you should make contact with Mansfield Building Society. The BSA will not advise or comment on specific queries relating to Mansfield Building Society or other lenders.

The Law Society of Scotland has advised that solicitors should check their lender panel status before accepting client instructions to act. The advice is lender-agnostic as it does not relate specifically to solicitors on the Mansfield Building Society 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 moneysavingexpert.com

Mansfield Building Society make no specific obligation to carry out any of the searches listed. The BSA Mortgage Instructions simply states that ‘you must ensure that any other searches which may be appropriate to the particular property, taking into account its locality and other features are carried out’.

Remember that most ‘less usual searches’ (as described in the Law Society’s Conveyancing Handbook) are not optional as far as Mansfield Building Society are concerned if they are ‘appropriate’. Most lenders will not require environmental searches (you should Check the Mansfield Building Society Specific Requirements of BSA Handbook to be sure), but you are obliged to explain risks and availability to the client.

Ground stability, Plansearch,flood searches as well as the searches listed in the question are optional – but only to the extent that you have allowed the borrower client to make an informed choice. Regardless of whether there is a mortgage, If you have not advised the client that these (and other) searches are available and what risks they cover, then you will be liable if the client suffers loss through not conducting one.

Although not necessarily published, lenders have varying criteria . We do not hold specific requirements relating to the questions raised as part of the application to be on the Mansfield Building Society conveyancing panel. Typically lenders need to have full knowledge of a firm including (but not limited to):

• Conveyancer client account(s) details
• Whether the firm is able to operate in other jurisdictions
• PII Cover details, including, if relevant, whether the firm is or has been in the assigned risks pool and structure of cover – top-up split and history of any refusals
• Full disciplinary history for each conveyancing solicitor
• List of all those staff who work within the conveyancing team
• Details of any accreditation e.g. Lexcel and/or Conveyancing Quality Scheme
• List of all those who can sign off the Certificate Of Title
• Automated alerting to inform lenders when there is a fundamental change to the firm e.g. change of ownership
• Whether the firm has ever accepted instructions in respect of property clubs and investment schemes
• SRA or equivalent regulator registration number where applicable

We can't comment specifically on Mansfield 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 Compliance Officer, but a firm should not send the complete conveyancing file without the borrower client’s express consent – and if he 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 valid? Please click here for more information about that case.

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