Stafford Railway 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 Stafford Railway Building Society solicitor panel appointment.

Stafford Railway Building Society addresses this at section B.3 of their BSA Mortgage Instructions which states:

The BSA, as is the case with the CML do not retain copies of Specific Requirements. We would advise that you contact Stafford Railway Building Society directly.

The BSA is an association rather than a regulator and therefore cannot advise on grievances against lenders. You can of course contact us to see if we can assist.

The Scottish Law Society has suggested that solicitors should check their lender panel status prior to accepting client instructions to act. The advice is lender-agnostic as it does not relate specifically to solicitors on the Stafford Railway Building Society conveyancing panel. The suggestion arises from the practice of a number of mortgage lenders who remove solicitors from their panels without prior notice as part of their panel management system, which can lead to some solicitors discovering this only once instructed. This is sensible advice as a client finding out midway through a transaction that their lawyer is not on the approved lender panel is very frustrating and can lead to complaints. Many online consumer forums contain posts where someone is complaining about finding that their lawyer is not on a lender conveyancing panel. Such forums include moneysavingexpert.com

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

The feeling from lenders generally (we can not speak for Stafford Railway 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

Stafford Railway 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.

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