Ecology Building Society Conveyancing Panel Information

The Law Society of Scotland has advised that solicitors should check their panel status with lenders prior to accepting client instructions to act. The advice is lender-agnostic as it does not relate specifically to solicitors on the Ecology 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 moneysavingexpert.com

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 Ecology Building Society conveyancing panel. Typically lenders need to have full knowledge of a firm including (but not limited to):

Full disciplinary history for each conveyancing solicitor

Structure of firm and, where applicable, its group

Number of lender conveyancing panels the firm is currently on

Areas of Law covered by the firm

Automated alerting to inform lenders when there is a fundamental change to the firm (e.g. change of ownership)

conveyancer client account(s) details

Number of partners per branch of the firm

and Conveyancing Quality Scheme

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

Full complaints history for each licensed conveyancer

The answer to this question really depends on the reason that your firm has been removed off the Ecology 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 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 Ecology Building Society conveyancing panel.

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

In the circumstances please explain on the form what action you have taken to find out the reasons behind cancellation of your Ecology Building Society panel membership. In particular please provide details if you have received communications from the lender. E.G. before termination of your panel membership did you receive any letters or calls from the lender informing you as to why they reached this decision?

You would be advised to get in touch with Ecology Building Society to obtain standard documents. The The Council of Mortgage Lenders Handbook incorporates an individual inquiry for banks to establish who to contact to obtain standard documents. Ecology Building Society in their Part 2’s state: It helps to disclose the firm’s Ecology Building Society conveyancing panel number.