Hampden Conveyancing Panel Information

As is the case with the Law Society the Council of Licensed Conveyancers has entered dialogue with banks and their representative bodies to see whether and how the risks that lenders wish to mitigate could be addressed through the regulatory framework rather than via ad hoc arrangements that can differ from lender to lender. We expect that that the CLC have been in touch with lenders such as Hampden in the recent past.

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

With banks and solicitors working so closely with one another 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 Hampden conveyancing panel but for all mortgage panel listings

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 Hampden solicitor panel membership. Please remember that it is always important that you complete your insurance forms accurately.

You would be advised to get in touch with Hampden to obtain standard documents. The CML Handbook contains an explicit inquiry for banks to enumerate who to contact to obtain standard documents. Hampden in their Part 2’s state: You will need to quote the firm’s Hampden solicitors panel number.