Cambridge Building Society 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 Cambridge Building Society solicitor panel appointment.

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

Many estate agents are suffering if their clients start out on the conveyancing process having appointed a conveyancer who is not on the panel with the purchaser’s chosen lender. Many conveyancing firms are only discovering when they begin working on a case that they are no longer able to work with that lender. Given the inevitable resultant delays in the transaction the chances of an abortive deal increases dramatically. in the circumstances there is understandable anguish on the part of the estate agent as a result of the lost time should the client have to change solicitors lawyers.

We can't comment specifically on Cambridge Building Society. Many major lenders are now introducing ‘file auditing’ as standard practice in relation to completed matters. This raises questions of confidentiality in relation to the buyer client and the purpose to which the results of such audits will be put. The starting point is to remember that the file does not belong to your firm, it belongs to the ‘client’. But, of course, we will normally have two clients – the buyer and the lender - and you will owe a duty of confidentiality to each. So basically, you have to separate the file and just send the lender the parts solely relating to themselves. But, of course, as this will basically be correspondence with the lender, mortgage instructions etc.

Check with your Compliance Officer, but a firm should not send the complete conveyancing file without the borrower client’s express consent – and if he is in arrears with the lender he is hardly likely to agree. However, if the lender can establish a prima facie case of fraud, then you may be under an obligation to disclose the whole file.

The emerging convention is that lenders are including an authority to disclose in loan application forms to counter this problem. Mortgage Express v Sawali, 2010 EWHC 3054 (Ch) indicates that such provisions valid? Please click here for more information about that case.

What you should do largely depends on the reason that your firm has been removed off the Cambridge Building Society 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 compliance officer you will need systems to identify patterns of breaches. Even if you don't consider there to be regulatory implications, the firms COFA needs to consider whether he or she needs to take any action as result of being removed from the conveyancing panel of Cambridge Building Society.

During this period 19 sections of the BSA Mortgage Instructions were changed by Cambridge Building Society. Some changes are more important than others but as a firm on the Cambridge Building Society conveyancing panel you are of course obliged to comply with individual lender requirements. Locktons have recently pointed out in an article that non-compliance with lender requirements account for a number of high value claims, and it is therefore important to be aware of any particularly onerous terms that an individual lender may impose.

Remember: BSA requirements are not guidelines; they are the lender client’s instructions.

When a solicitor is acting for both Cambridge Building Society 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 your situation, if the purchaser will not consent to the information being passed on to the lender, the solicitor must cease to act for Cambridge Building Society and it may well be prudent for you to cease to act for the purchaser as well. You must not inform Cambridge Building Society of 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 Cambridge Building Society conveyancing panel status.

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