Together Personal Finance Conveyancing Panel Information

There are many reports available, five of which are as follows:

• Disclosure/Notification to Lender analysis indicating frequency and nature of disclosures - to include benchmarking analysis against aggregate data
• Number of conveyancing cases by lender
• The percentage of the firm’s business which is conveyancing (broken down into sale/purchase and remortgage)
• Analysis as to the nature of clients (e.g.existing/new/seen in person)
• Current and historic missed priority dates

The majority of lenders do not operate a specific buy to let conveyancing panel but we are hearing about a few that do. We do not know what the position is with Together Personal Finance as at todays date. If you're about to receive instructions from a client on a buy to let purchase with a mortgage from Together Personal Finance we suggest that you call Together Personal Finance to check the position.

What you should do largely depends on the reason that your firm has been removed off the Together Personal Finance 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 COLP 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 Together Personal Finance conveyancing panel.

When a solicitor is acting for both Together Personal Finance 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 the situation you find yourself in if the purchaser will not consent to the information being passed on to the lender the solicitor must cease to act for the Together Personal Finance and it may well be prudent you to cease to act for the purchaser as well. You can not tell the Together Personal Finance 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 Together Personal Finance conveyancing panel status.

In the circumstances please clarify on the form what steps you have taken to find out the reasons behind cancellation of your Together Personal Finance panel status. In particular please provide details if you have received communications from the lender. E.G. before revocation of your panel membership did you receive any letters or calls from the lender putting you on notice?

You should get in touch with Together Personal Finance to obtain standard documents. The The Council of Mortgage Lenders Handbook includes an explicit question for banks to enumerate who to contact to obtain standard documents. Together Personal Finance in their Part 2’s state: Always remember to disclose the firm’s Together Personal Finance solicitors panel number.