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 BSA do not involve themselves in training but they do host a number of useful legal related conferences which are attended by firms on the Cambridge Building Society conveyancing panel. It is our intention to run specific lender focused seminars in the coming months including a webinar on Cambridge Building Society’s requirements . Solicitors on the Cambridge Building Society conveyancing panel are welcome . Information about the webinar will be communicated as part of the LENDERmonitor change Notifications .

The Scottish Law Society has advised that solicitors should check their panel status with lenders before accepting client instructions to act. The advice is lender-agnostic as it does not relate specifically to solicitors on the Cambridge Building Society 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 mumsnet.com

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 borrower 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 dispute 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.

In order to be on the Cambridge Building Society conveyancing panel solicitors have to complete an application form and agree Terms and Conditions. A sample of 5 conditions that we see amongst many lenders Terms (but not necessarily Cambridge Building Society) are as follows:

• To carry out our instructions with reasonable care and skill, ensuring that all employees carrying out mortgage work on our behalf are qualified and competent to do so
• That any deeds you borrow from us in connection with the personal mortgage of a partner or director at your firm must be requested by a partner or director other than the partner or director concerned and the transaction must be handled by that other partner or director. If you are a sole practitioner and require the loan of deeds in connection with your own mortgage, you must nominate a different firm on our panel to request the deeds and handle the transaction.
• To quote on all communications with us relating to registration issues, whether by telephone or in writing, the panel number that we provide for each practising address and the mortgage account or application number for the mortgage concerned.
• You have the consent of all borrowers to apply for the deeds, before making any request for deeds. We will accept your request for deeds on the understanding that you have obtained such consent. If this is not the case then you should advise our Deeds Services Department in writing when you make your request
• To be responsible for the reconstitution of the title deeds (whether the title is registered or unregistered, at your own cost), where any deeds in your possession, or were last known to be in your possession, go missing.

With lenders and conveyancers working so closely together it is surprising that there has not been much call for the introduction of a bit of transparency regarding not just the figures for the Cambridge Building Society conveyancing panel but for all mortgage panels

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

5 consumers search for a conveyancing practitioner on the Cambridge Building Society panel on a monthly basis in Hendon. The lenderpanel directory service team who will show you how your firm can be found by those searching for conveyancing in Hendon.