Royal Bank of Scotland Conveyancing Panel Information

The requirements to join the Royal Bank of Scotland conveyancing panel is likely to be fairly detailed and is unlikely to include signing up to LENDERmonitor alerts.

In operating open conveyancing panels, lenders such as Royal Bank of Scotland face a number of fraud and negligence risks. While there is no authoritative source of data on lender exposure to solicitor–led mortgage fraud, anecdotal evidence from lenders indicates exposure on individual cases are often in the millions of pounds. The National Fraud Authority estimates that £1bn per year is lost in mortgage -related frauds in total, which is seen as a conservative estimate.

These risks are exacerbated by the lack of a comprehensive set of data on all conveyancing firms (which, for the avoidance of doubt, would include solicitors and conveyancers across the UK) which is in a readily accessible format. Currently, lenders vet the suitability of their panel firms against a variety of disparate, incomplete and potentially inaccurate sets of information. One top 5 lender pointed out to us that it is almost impossible to track individual fraudsters who move from firm to firm, especially where they are no longer registered or no longer hold a valid practicing certificate.

Royal Bank of Scotland and other 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. There is also regulatory impetus on lenders to ensure that they have satisfactory oversight of their third party panels, including a due-diligence process.

The answer to this question really depends on the reason that your firm has been removed off the Royal Bank of Scotland conveyancing panel. The top 3 reasons are as follows:

1. lack of transactions
2. the lawyer is a sole practitioner
3. as part of the HSBC panel reduction.

In these three circumstances it is unlikely that you would expected to take any action. Disclosure and other compliance considerations are more likely to be relevant if the reason for removal is due to breaches of lender requirements or allegations of fraud or negligence. Whether the reasoning should trigger a disclosable 'material' breach will depend on the firm and the circumstances around possible failures to comply with the SRA Authorisation Rules, and the SRA will judge each case on its own merits. Factors such as the detriment or risk of detriment to clients, the scale of the issue and overall impact on the firm will need to be considered in deciding whether a failure is 'material'. As the compliance officer you will need systems to identify patterns of breaches. Even if you don't consider there to be regulatory implications the firms COFA should give some thought to whether she/he needs to take any action as result of being removed from the Royal Bank of Scotland conveyancing panel.

The Law Society’s CQS membership is no guarantee to lender panel acceptance. Nevertheless the CML have indicated that it is likely to become a prerequisite for firms wishing to join their panels. Some Lenders now use CQS as the starting point for Panel acceptance such as HSBC.

You would be advised to contact Royal Bank of Scotland to obtain standard documents. The The Council of Mortgage Lenders Handbook has an individual section for lenders to enumerate who to contact to obtain standard documents. Royal Bank of Scotland in their Part 2’s state: It is likely that you will need to disclose your Royal Bank of Scotland solicitors panel reference.