Penrith Building Society Conveyancing Panel Information

The information on this page is designed to keep solicitors and licensed conveyancers abreast of latest requirements changes by Penrith Building Society and to assist in remaining on the Penrith Building Society Approved Conveyancing Solicitors.

Penrith Building Society Conveyancing Panel Information:

What are the Penrith Building Society conveyancing panel criteria?
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:

Firm must have minimum of 3 partners/principals and provide copy of the acting partner's practicing certificate and confirmation of professional indemnity insurance. Contact point see above.

You must also comply with the terms and conditions of your Penrith Building Society solicitor panel appointment.

Do Penrith Building Society or the Building Society Association run professional training Courses for the Penrith Building Society approved solicitor panel in the same way that CQS run CPD Courses for accredited firms?
No such training is arranged by the BSA however they do arrange numerous useful conveyancing related conferences which are attended by firms on the Penrith Building Society conveyancing panel. It is our intention to run specific lender focused seminars in the near future including a webinar on Penrith Building Society’s obligations . Solicitors on the Penrith Building Society conveyancing panel are welcome . Information about the webinar will be communicated as part of the LENDERmonitor change Notifications .
A recent SRA survey reveals that three quarters of solicitors have been removed or threatened with removal from a lender conveyancing panel. Penrith Building Society and other building societies have restricted their panel over the years. Why?
The feeling from lenders generally (we can not speak for Penrith Building Society specifically), is that for too long solicitors have concentrated on their duty of care to their purchasing client, and have paid scant attention to the duty they owe to the lender, whom they conveniently forget is also their client.

Looking from the lenders’ perspective, it has to be said that there are pressures to encourage smaller panels. The Financial Services Authority regards the open panel system as a major contributor to mortgage fraud and negligence cases, and has been leaning on lenders to move to proactive panel management, which is more expensive the larger the panel. Hence it is becoming more common for lenders to charge fees, and/or require extensive form-filling, from would-be panel members

Penrith Building Society and other BSA lenders are in varying stages of reviewing their approach to vetting firms on their conveyancing panels, to ensure their ongoing exposure to unsuitable firms is reduced.

It is possible that Penrith Building Society could request or audit my files as I am on the Penrith Building Society conveyancing panel. How should I respond in the event of such a demand?
We can't comment specifically on Penrith 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 buyer client 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 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 valid? Please click here for more information about that case.

Do publish figures exists revealing the Penrith Building Society conveyancing panel size and the number of conveyancing firms removed from their panel each year?
With banks and conveyancing firms 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 Penrith Building Society conveyancing panel but for all bank panels
What lender panels do you receive the most questions about?
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:
My partners and I run a small firm on the Penrith Building Society conveyancing panel. How can we advertise our firm as carrying out conveyancing in Hendon who can act for the borrower and Penrith Building Society?
8 borrowers search for a solicitor on the Penrith Building Society panel every 4 weeks in Hendon. The lenderpanel directory service team who will show you how your firm can be identified by those searching for conveyancing in Hendon.

Find a Lawyer on the Penrith Building Society Approved Conveyancing Solicitors

powered by LenderPanel

Average number of days to register title including a charge in favour of Penrith Building Society
This information relates to purchase only and not remortgages.
YearDays*
2024 [no data]
2023 [no data]
2022 [no data]
2021 [no data]
2020 [no data]
2019 [no data]
* Data aggregated from sources including COMPLETIONmonitor