Capital Home Loans Conveyancing Panel Information

Each lender has different criteria. We do not hold specific requirements relating to the questions raised as part of the application to be on the Capital Home Loans conveyancing panel. Typically lenders need to have full knowledge of a firm including (but not limited to):

Full career history for each licensed conveyancer including registration date with Council of Licensed Conveyancers

Solicitor

List of all those who fund the firm, including non-lawyers if applicable

Areas of Law covered by the firm

List of all Licensed Conveyancers within firm

Whether any lender has ever made a claim against the firm’s PII cover

Whether the firm has ever accepted instructions in respect of property clubs and investment schemes

List of all those who can sign off the Certificate Of Title

Whether the firm has ever applied for accreditation and the outcome of the application

Summary of annual accounts

In order to be on the Capital Home Loans 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 Capital Home Loans) are as follows:

• 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
• Without prejudice to your obligation to comply in full with the Safeguards provisions in the CML Lenders’ Handbook, to report to us as soon as possible any suspicion that you have about the genuineness of any transaction in any respect.
• To keep us informed of the reasons for any delay in your being able to send the title deeds and documents we require to us within 3 months of completion or evidence of proof of registration within that period. (We will send reminders if the deeds have not been received but will not acknowledge receipt of deeds.)
• 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.
• 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.

The answer to this question really depends on the reason that your firm has been removed off the Capital Home Loans 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 COLP you will need systems to identify patterns of breaches. Even if you don't consider there to be regulatory implications the firms COFA should give some thought to whether she/he needs to take any action as result of being removed from the Capital Home Loans conveyancing panel.

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

The best placed professionals to answer this question are your insurance brokers. The chances are that on the basis that you have not been removed for fraud or negligence reasons that there will be little or no impact. The main reason why a firm would be removed off of a lender panel is due to low volume of conveyancing cases although there may be a number of criteria for Capital Home Loans solicitor panel membership. Please remember that it is always important that you complete your insurance forms accurately.

You would be advised to communicate with Capital Home Loans to obtain standard documents. The The Council of Mortgage Lenders Handbook has an individual question for lenders to establish who to contact to obtain standard documents. Capital Home Loans in their Part 2’s state: It is likely that you will need to quote your Capital Home Loans solicitors panel number.