Hinckley and Rugby Conveyancing Panel Information

We only know of two or three lenders that operate a separate approved solicitors panel where the mortgage advance is over a certain level. You should nevertheless check directly with Hinckley and Rugby. At one stage HSBC would only allow Sole practitioners to act for them where the mortgage was below £150,000. We are not sure if HSBC still operate such a condition. In your case it is best to check with Hinckley and Rugby

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

• Buy to Let transactions
• Disclosure/Notification to Lender analysis indicating frequency and nature of disclosures - to include benchmarking analysis against aggregate data
• Evidence of undertaking logs
• Analysis as to the nature of clients (e.g.existing/new/seen in person)
• Current and historic missed priority dates

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

Hinckley and Rugby approved panel lawyers are bound by the UK Finance Lenders’ Handbook instructions relating to Transfer of Equity. These are set out in Section 16.3. First, your firm must approve the form of Transfer of Equity (which should be in the Land Registry's standard form) and, if Hinckley and Rugby require, the deed of covenant on their behalf. You will need to check Hinckley and Rugby CML Part 2 conditions to see if Hinckley and Rugby have standard forms of transfer and deed of covenant. Please note that this requirement can change from one transaction to another so do check! Second,When drafting or approving a transfer, you should bear in mind that: although the transfer should state that it is subject to the mortgage (identified by date and parties), it need give no details of the terms of the mortgage; the transfer need not state the amount of the mortgage debt. If it does, the figure should include both principal and interest at the date of completion, which you must check ; there should be no statement that all interest has been paid to date. Further obligations are set out in the UK Finance Lenders’ Handbook which have to be followed by all firms on the Hinckley and Rugby 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 Hinckley and Rugby solicitor panel membership. Please remember that it is always important that you complete your insurance forms accurately.

You need to get in touch with Hinckley and Rugby to obtain standard documents. The CML Handbook incorporates an express section for lenders to cite who to contact to obtain standard documents. Hinckley and Rugby in their Part 2’s state: Please remember to disclose the firm’s Hinckley and Rugby solicitors panel reference.