Newcastle 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 Newcastle Building Society solicitor panel appointment.

The BSA is not a regulator and therefore cannot advise on grievances against lenders. You can of course contact us to see if we can help.

The criteria to join the Newcastle Building Society conveyancing panel is likely to be fairly detailed and is unlikely to include signing up to LENDERmonitor alerts.

The BSA Mortgage Instructions state that the firm must keep the file for at least 6 years from the date of the mortgage. Data imaging is normally suitable compliance with this requirement. As a firm on the Newcastle Building Society conveyancing panel you must allow Newcastle Building Society to conduct such reasonable audit of your information security measures as Newcastle Building Society or their agents may to ensure your compliance with your file retention obligations.

The CLC has initiated dialogue with lenders 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 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 Newcastle Building Society as well as the CML

We can't comment specifically on Newcastle 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.

The BSA Mortgage Instructions don't specifically deal with Solar Panels but it would be prudent as approved solicitors for Newcastle Building Society to raise the issue with them (as you would if the UK Finance Lenders’ Handbook applied). In any event you need to raise the appropriate questions for your buyer client.

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