ModaMortgages Conveyancing Panel Information

The Council of Mortgage Lenders, together with ModaMortgages and other members developed a standard set of requirements where a conveyancer is representing a lender such as ModaMortgages alone in a residential conveyancing transaction. These legal instructions are contained at Part III of the UK Finance Lenders’ Handbook and are to be followed together with Sections One and Two. The UK Finance have published an example requirements letter to the borrower’s conveyancing solicitor for use by the lender's conveyancer, and sets out to the borrower's conveyancer, the documentary and information requirements of the lender's panel lawyer.

We can't comment specifically on ModaMortgages. 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 arrears 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 concern here is if you are expect to enter into ‘more onerous’ conditions that than the Handbook obligations. You have to try and take an objective view as to whether the Terms relating to the ModaMortgages conveyancing appointment (or other terms for other lenders) are ‘more onerous’ than the UK Finance Lenders’ Handbook Conditions. Depending on the Terms you may need to provide details on your renewal form. If you are in any doubt please call your broker to discuss before moving forward on this question.

5 potential conveyancing clients search for a property lawyer on the ModaMortgages panel every 4 weeks in Hendon. Feel free to contact the Lexsure team who will tell how your firm can be identified by those searching for conveyancing in Hendon.

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 ModaMortgages solicitor panel membership. Please remember that it is always important that you complete your insurance forms accurately.

You need to communicate with ModaMortgages to obtain standard documents. The The Council of Mortgage Lenders Handbook incorporates a specific question for banks to cite who to contact to obtain standard documents. ModaMortgages in their Part 2’s state: Always remember to disclose your ModaMortgages conveyancing panel reference.