Lloyds Conveyancing Panel Information

The criteria to join the Lloyds conveyancing panel is likely to be fairly detailed and is unlikely to include signing up to LENDERmonitor alerts.

In order to be on the Lloyds 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 Lloyds) are as follows:

• 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.
• 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
• If you are a sole practitioner, to arrange for appropriate locum cover from our panel where necessary. Your locum must be a member of the Conveyancing panel.
• To forward the title deeds and documents to another solicitor/conveyancer within 24 hours of an instruction from us requiring you to do so. On forwarding the deeds as instructed you will confirm to us that you have done so. Upon receipt of your confirmation, we will release you from all undertakings relating to your holding the title deeds.
• To quote on all communications with us relating to deeds/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 will be aware of the trend in recent years for lenders such as Lloyds 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 Lloyds panel. The situation that you find yourself in is where your client’s purchaser has his/her own lawyer and Lloyds 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 Lloyds’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 Lloyds. You will no doubt be required to undertake directly to Lloyds’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 Lloyds conveyancing panel.

Your insurance brokers are your best port of call to address this question. 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 Lloyds solicitor panel membership. Please remember that it is always important that you complete your insurance forms accurately.

You need to contact Lloyds to obtain standard documents. The The Council of Mortgage Lenders Handbook contains a specific section for lenders to enumerate who to contact to obtain standard documents. Lloyds in their Part 2’s state: Always remember to disclose the firm’s Lloyds solicitors panel reference.