Mortgage Agency Services Conveyancing Panel Information

Section 16.2.1 of Part 1 of the Handbook applicable to a solicitor on the Mortgage Agency Services conveyancing panel reads ‘Our mortgage secures further advances. Consequently, when a further advance is required for alterations or improvements to the property we will not normally instruct a member of our conveyancing panel but if you are instructed the appropriate provisions of this Handbook will apply’.

We are not aware of any intention on the part of the CML to develop such a tool.

You will be aware of the trend in recent years for lenders such as Mortgage Agency Services 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 Mortgage Agency Services panel. The situation that you find yourself in is where your client’s purchaser has his/her own lawyer and Mortgage Agency Services 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 Mortgage Agency Services’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 Mortgage Agency Services. You will no doubt be required to undertake directly to Mortgage Agency Services’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 Mortgage Agency Services 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 Mortgage Agency Services solicitor panel membership. Please remember that it is always important that you complete your insurance forms accurately.

You would be advised to contact Mortgage Agency Services to obtain standard documents. The CML Handbook includes a specific inquiry for banks to establish who to contact to obtain standard documents. Mortgage Agency Services in their Part 2’s state: Don’t forget to quote your Mortgage Agency Services solicitors panel reference.