National Westminster Bank Conveyancing Panel Information

The Council of Licensed Conveyancers has begun dialogue with banks and their representative bodies to see whether and how the risks that lenders wish to mitigate could be addressed through the regulatory framework rather than via ad hoc arrangements that can differ from lender to lender. It is likely that that the CLC have been in touch with lenders such as National Westminster Bank in the recent past.

One might ordinarily expect National Westminster Bank via their Part Two requirements to address this but the Handbook is silent on deadlines to send deeds. Do look at the Terms of National Westminster Bank’s Conveyancing Panel Appointment that you are bound by. For a number of banks these Terms contain a provision along the following lines: ‘To keep us informed of the reasons for any delay in your being able to send the title deeds and documents we require to us within 3 months of completion or evidence of proof of registration within that period. (We will send reminders if the deeds have not been received but will not acknowledge receipt of deeds’ It is important to keep National Westminster Bank updated. Law firms can often compound their problems by not communicating with the lender when there is a delay or problem.

There are many reports available, five of which are as follows:

• Average time frame to send deeds to the lender (calculated from completion date or title registration)
• Evidence of undertaking logs
• Disclosure/Notification to Lender analysis indicating frequency and nature of disclosures - to include benchmarking analysis against aggregate data
• Number of conveyancing cases by lender
• Analysis as to the nature of clients (e.g.existing/new/seen in person)

You will be aware of the trend in recent years for lenders such as National Westminster Bank 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 National Westminster Bank panel. The situation that you find yourself in is where your client’s purchaser has his/her own lawyer and National Westminster Bank 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 National Westminster Bank’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 National Westminster Bank. You will no doubt be required to undertake directly to National Westminster Bank’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 National Westminster Bank conveyancing panel.

CQS membership gives no guarantee to lender panel acceptance. Nevertheless the Council of Mortgage Lenders have indicated that it is likely to become a prerequisite for firms wishing to remain on their panels. A number of Lenders now use CQS as the starting point for Panel approval such as HSBC.

You would be advised to contact National Westminster Bank to obtain standard documents. The The Council of Mortgage Lenders Handbook has an express question for lenders to cite who to contact to obtain standard documents. National Westminster Bank in their Part 2’s state: Don’t forget to quote your National Westminster Bank conveyancing panel reference.