Better HomeOwnership Conveyancing Panel Information

The requirements to join the Better HomeOwnership conveyancing panel is likely to be fairly detailed and is unlikely to include signing up to LENDERmonitor alerts.

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

• Average time frame to register charges at the Land Registry
• Disclosure/Notification to Lender analysis indicating frequency and nature of disclosures - to include benchmarking analysis against aggregate data
• Analysis as to the nature of clients (e.g.existing/new/seen in person)
• Evidence of undertaking logs
• The percentage of the firm’s business which is conveyancing (broken down into sale/purchase and remortgage)

You will be aware of the trend in recent years for lenders such as Better HomeOwnership 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 Better HomeOwnership panel. The situation that you find yourself in is where your client’s purchaser has his/her own lawyer and Better HomeOwnership 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 Better HomeOwnership’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 Better HomeOwnership. You will no doubt be required to undertake directly to Better HomeOwnership’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 Better HomeOwnership conveyancing panel.

8 consumers attempt to locate a property lawyer on the Better HomeOwnership panel each month in Hendon. The lenderpanel directory service team who will show you how your firm can be found by those searching for conveyancing in Hendon.

CQS accreditation 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. Some mortgage companies now use the Conveyancing Quality Scheme accreditation as the starting point for Panel acceptance such as HSBC.

You would be advised to communicate with Better HomeOwnership to obtain standard documents. The The Council of Mortgage Lenders Handbook includes a specific question for lenders to cite who to contact to obtain standard documents. Better HomeOwnership in their Part 2’s state: You will need to quote the firm’s Better HomeOwnership conveyancing panel reference.