West Bromwich Mortgage Company 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 West Bromwich Mortgage Company solicitor panel appointment.

The BSA, as is the case with the CML do not hold duplicates of Specific Requirements. We would recommend you contact West Bromwich Mortgage Company direct.

Lexsure has not been advised of any plans on the part of the BSA to develop such a register .

The Scottish Law Society has suggested that solicitors should check their panel status with lenders prior to accepting client instructions to act. The advice is lender-agnostic as it does not relate specifically to solicitors on the West Bromwich Mortgage Company 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 introduced it’s Mortgage Instructions in 2010 to ensure that licensed conveyancers or solicitors on a building society conveyancing panel had full access to a complete set of standardised mortgage instructions.

Please tread carefully here as what you are intending may not be acceptable to the lender. It is possible that you (as a non-panel firm) or the mortgage applicant are not entitled instruct a panel firm of your choice. Lenders such as Nationwide BS make it clear to their panel firms that where a non-panel member firm is instructed by one of their mortgage applicants, the lender must appoint a panel firm to carry out its instructions and to liaise with the borrower's conveyancer. You also need to make the costs implications and potential for delay very clear to your client.

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