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.

We would not expect to be advised of any intention on the part of the BSA to promote such a search facility .

The fact of the matter is that estate agents are suffering if their clients start out on the conveyancing process having appointed a solicitor who is not on the panel with the purchaser’s chosen lender. Many conveyancing firms are only discovering when they begin working on a case that they are no longer able to work with that lender. Given the inevitable resultant delays in the transaction the chances of an abortive deal increases dramatically. in the circumstances there is understandable anguish on the part of the estate agent as a result of the lost time should the client have to change solicitors lawyers.

Each lender has different criteria. We do not hold specific requirements relating to the questions raised as part of the application to be on the Stafford Railway Building Society conveyancing panel. Typically lenders need to have full knowledge of a firm including (but not limited to):

• Firm name, address and contact details including all branches (including evidence of existence through risk-based physical visits and Google Streetview checks)
• Full career history for each licensed conveyancer including registration date with Council of Licensed Conveyancers
• Structure of firm and, where applicable, its group
• Full complaints history for each conveyancing solicitor
• Whether the firm has ever accepted instructions in respect of property clubs and investment schemes
• List of all those who fund the firm, including non-lawyers if applicable
• Full disciplinary history for each conveyancing solicitor
• PII Cover details, including, if relevant, whether the firm is or has been in the assigned risks pool and structure of cover – top-up split and history of any refusals
• Full complaints history for each licensed conveyancer
• Full career history for each solicitor including admission date to the relevant Law Society

There are many reports available but examples include:

• Average time frame to register charges at the Land Registry
• Average time frame to send deeds to the lender (calculated from completion date or title registration)
• Number of conveyancing cases by lender
• The percentage of the firm’s business which is conveyancing (broken down into sale)
• Average mortgage advance
• Buy to Let transactions
• Disclosure to Lender analysis indicating frequency and nature of disclosures - to include benchmarking analysis against aggregate data
• Evidence of undertaking logs
• Current and historic missed priority dates
• Analysis as to the nature of clients (e.g. new client )

The key here is the caveat ‘more onerous’.

You have to try and take an objective view as to whether the Terms relating to the Stafford Railway Building Society conveyancing appointment (or other terms for other lenders) are ‘more onerous’ than the BSA Mortgage Instructions. Depending on the Terms you may need to provide details on your renewal form. If you are in any doubt please call your broker to discuss before moving forward on this question.

When a solicitor is acting for both Stafford Railway 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 your situation, if the purchaser will not consent to the information being passed on to the lender, the solicitor must cease to act for Stafford Railway Building Society and it may well be prudent for you to cease to act for the purchaser as well. You must not inform Stafford Railway Building Society of 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 Stafford Railway Building Society conveyancing panel status.

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