Nationwide Building Society Conveyancing Panel Information

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

Full disciplinary history for each conveyancing solicitor

SRA or equivalent regulator registration number where applicable

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 knowingly accepted instructions on transactions involving Sale and Rent Back, Back to Back, Exchange and Delayed Completion and Lease Option, Below Market Value.

top-up split and history of any refusals

Areas of Law covered by the firm

Full career history for each solicitor including admission date to the relevant Law Society

Whether any lender has ever made a claim against the firm’s PII cover

Number of lender conveyancing panels the firm is currently on

When a solicitor is acting for both Nationwide 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 the situation you find yourself in if the purchaser will not consent to the information being passed on to the lender the solicitor must cease to act for the Nationwide Building Society and it may well be prudent you to cease to act for the purchaser as well. You can not tell the Nationwide Building Society 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 Nationwide Building Society conveyancing panel status.

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

With banks and property lawyers working so closely together it is surprising that there has not been much call for the introduction of a bit of transparency regarding not just the figures for the Nationwide Building Society conveyancing panel but for all lender panels

You should supply details of the date of removal, information on the reason for removal, date of appeal and any reason given for reinstatement. This should not negatively affect your application but gives the Law Society a complete picture of what has gone on.

You need to communicate with Nationwide Building Society to obtain standard documents. The CML Handbook includes a specific question for banks to reveal who to contact to obtain standard documents. Nationwide Building Society in their Part 2’s state: Please remember to disclose the firm’s Nationwide Building Society solicitors panel reference.