Adam & Company Conveyancing Panel Information

You will be aware of the trend in recent years for lenders such as Adam & Company 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 Adam & Company panel. The situation that you find yourself in is where your client’s purchaser has his/her own lawyer and Adam & Company 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 Adam & Company’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 Adam & Company. You will no doubt be required to undertake directly to Adam & Company’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 Adam & Company 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 Adam & Company conveyancing panel to see if you are entitled to a reason.

Adam & Company approved panel lawyers have to comply with the Part II instructions relating to Transfer of Equity. These are set out in Section 16.3. First, your firm must approve the form of Transfer of Equity (which should be in the Land Registry's standard form) and, if Adam & Company require, the deed of covenant on their behalf. You will need to check Adam & Company CML Part 2 conditions to see if Adam & Company have standard forms of transfer and deed of covenant. Please note that this requirement can change from one transaction to another so do check! Second,When drafting or approving a transfer, you should bear in mind that: although the transfer should state that it is subject to the mortgage (identified by date and parties), it need give no details of the terms of the mortgage; the transfer need not state the amount of the mortgage debt. If it does, the figure should include both principal and interest at the date of completion, which you must check ; there should be no statement that all interest has been paid to date. Further obligations are set out in the UK Finance Lenders’ Handbook which have to be followed by all firms on the Adam & Company conveyancing panel

CQS membership is no guarantee to lender panel acceptance. Nevertheless the Council of Mortgage Lenders have indicated that it is likely to become a prerequisite for firms wishing to remain on their approved list of conveyancing solicitors. A number of Lenders now use CQS as the starting point for Panel acceptance such as Astra Mortgages.

You should get in touch with Adam & Company to obtain standard documents. The CML Handbook incorporates an express section for lenders to reveal who to contact to obtain standard documents. Adam & Company in their Part 2’s state: You will need to quote the firm’s Adam & Company conveyancing panel number.