RBS - Direct Line One Conveyancing Panel Information

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

• Buy to Let transactions
• Current and historic missed priority dates
• The percentage of the firm’s business which is conveyancing (broken down into sale/purchase and remortgage)
• Average time frame to send deeds to the lender (calculated from completion date or title registration)
• Average time frame to register charges at the Land Registry

In the same way that there is a unique RBS - Direct Line One conveyancing panel most building societies, operate a conveyancing panel for solicitors and other conveyancers that the lender will instruct. Terms and Conditions and criteria for inclusion on a building society conveyancing panel vary from lender-to-lender. Having CQS accreditation may be a requirement. Institutional lenders, such as a building society, is a client and is entitled to instruct the solicitor or conveyancer of its choosing (who, in turn, is free to accept or refuse instructions). Therefore, if lender and borrower cannot agree which solicitor or conveyancer should represent them jointly, they would usually proceed on a separate representation basis. The BSA have not published the equivalent of the UK Finance Lenders’ Handbook Part 3s.

The key here is the caveat ‘more onerous’. You have to try and take an objective view as to whether the Terms relating to the RBS - Direct Line One conveyancing appointment (or other terms for other lenders) are ‘more onerous’ than the UK Finance Lenders’ Handbook Conditions. Depending on the Terms you may need to provide details on your renewal form. If you are in any doubt please call your broker to discuss before moving forward on this question.

With banks and property lawyers working so closely together it is surprising that there has not been greater demand for the introduction of a bit of transparency regarding not just the figures for the RBS - Direct Line One conveyancing panel but for all mortgage panels

We would recommend that you supply details of the date of removal, information on the reason for removal, date of appeal and any reason given for reinstatement. This should not adversely impact your application but gives the CQS team a complete picture of what has occured.

You should get in touch with RBS - Direct Line One to obtain standard documents. The CML Handbook has an explicit question for banks to set out who to contact to obtain standard documents. RBS - Direct Line One in their Part 2’s state: It is likely that you will need to disclose the firm’s RBS - Direct Line One solicitors panel reference.