Virgin Conveyancing Panel Information

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

• Average mortgage advance
• The percentage of the firm’s business which is conveyancing (broken down into sale/purchase and remortgage)
• Number of conveyancing cases by lender
• 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)

You will be aware of the trend in recent years for lenders such as Virgin to take a much more pro-active approach in relation to the management and make up of their conveyancer panels. The knock on effect of this is that it is more likely that there will be a higher number of cases where a conveyancer is not on the Virgin panel. The situation that you find yourself in is where your client’s purchaser has his/her own lawyer and Virgin have appointed a separate lawyer to act on their behalf where the new CML Part 3 requirements apply. Section 11.1 of the UK Finance Lenders’ Handbook Part 3 requires Virgin’s panel solicitor to ‘ ...transfer the mortgage advance directly to the Seller’s conveyancer. The Seller’s conveyancer must be required to hold the mortgage advance on the terms of the required undertaking. The example borrower’s conveyancer’s undertaking letter includes a specific example of the seller’s undertaking’. You should expect to be advised to received the mortgage advance directly from the conveyancing solicitors for Virgin. You will no doubt be required to undertake directly to Virgin’s solicitors to discharge any charges secured on the property and to send directly to them the executed transfer and any other documents required to enable us to effect registration. Please remember to carefully consider undertakings in accordance with your firm’s protocol and record them in your undertakings logg. Please remember that as well as this breach of this undertaking having regulatory and compliance implications it’s breach could also result in your firm being removed off the Virgin conveyancing panel.

For most lenders participation on the lender's panel of conveyancers is at the absolute discretion of the the lender. Many lenders reserve the right to accept or reject any application without giving any reason. You should check your original application to join the Virgin conveyancing panel to see if you are entitled to a reason.

9 people search for a conveyancer on the Virgin 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.

In the circumstances please clarify on the application what action you have taken to discover the reasons behind cancellation of your Virgin panel membership. 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 advising you as to their reasons?

You should contact Virgin to obtain standard documents. The The Council of Mortgage Lenders Handbook incorporates an explicit inquiry for banks to set out who to contact to obtain standard documents. Virgin in their Part 2’s state: Always remember to disclose the firm’s Virgin conveyancing panel reference.