Ipswich Building Society Conveyancing Panel Information

Unlike the CML the Building Society Mortgage Instructions deal with this. Section A.12 states ‘In order to act on our behalf your firm or company must be a member of our conveyancing panel provided we are a society that operates one – see specific requirements for details of our arrangements. The Special Requirements state:

You must also comply with the terms and conditions of your Ipswich Building Society solicitor panel appointment.

Ipswich Building Society addresses this at section B.3 of their BSA specific requirements which states:

No such training is arranged by the BSA although they do arrange a number of general legal related conferences which are attended by firms on the Ipswich Building Society conveyancing panel. We do intend to run specific lender focused seminars in the near future including a webinar on Ipswich Building Society’s requirements . Solicitors on the Ipswich Building Society conveyancing panel are welcome . Information about the webinar will be made available as part of the LENDERmonitor change Notifications .

The requirements to join the Ipswich Building Society conveyancing panel is likely to be fairly detailed and is unlikely to include signing up to LENDERmonitor alerts.

The feeling from lenders generally (we can not speak for Ipswich Building Society specifically), is that for too long solicitors have concentrated on their duty of care to their purchasing client, and have paid scant attention to the duty they owe to the lender, whom they conveniently forget is also their client.

Looking from the lenders’ perspective, it has to be said that there are pressures to encourage smaller panels. The Financial Services Authority regards the open panel system as a major contributor to mortgage fraud and negligence cases, and has been leaning on lenders to move to proactive panel management, which is more expensive the larger the panel. Hence it is becoming more common for lenders to charge fees, and/or require extensive form-filling, from would-be panel members

Ipswich Building Society and other BSA lenders are in varying stages of reviewing their approach to vetting firms on their conveyancing panels, to ensure their ongoing exposure to unsuitable firms is reduced.

We can't comment specifically on Ipswich Building Society. Many major lenders are now introducing ‘file auditing’ as standard practice in relation to completed matters. This raises questions of confidentiality in relation to the buyer client and the purpose to which the results of such audits will be put. The starting point is to remember that the file does not belong to your firm, it belongs to the ‘client’. But, of course, we will normally have two clients – the buyer and the lender - and you will owe a duty of confidentiality to each. So basically, you have to separate the file and just send the lender the parts solely relating to themselves. But, of course, as this will basically be correspondence with the lender, mortgage instructions etc.

Check with your Compliance Officer, but a firm should not send the complete conveyancing file without the borrower client’s express consent – and if he is in dispute with the lender he is hardly likely to agree. However, if the lender can establish a prima facie case of fraud, then you may be under an obligation to disclose the whole file.

The emerging convention is that lenders are including an authority to disclose in loan application forms to counter this problem. Mortgage Express v Sawali, 2010 EWHC 3054 (Ch) indicates that such provisions valid? Please click here for more information about that case.

In order to be on the Ipswich Building Society 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 Ipswich Building Society) are as follows:

• To forward the title deeds and documents to another solicitor 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 keep us informed of the reasons for any delay in your being able to send the title deeds and documents we require to us within 3 months of completion or evidence of proof of registration within that period. (We will send reminders if the deeds have not been received but will not acknowledge receipt of deeds.)
• You have the consent of all borrowers to apply for the deeds, before making any request for deeds. We will accept your request for deeds on the understanding that you have obtained such consent. If this is not the case then you should advise our Deeds Services Department in writing when you make your request
• 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.
• That any deeds you borrow from us in connection with the personal mortgage of a partner or director at your firm must be requested by a partner or director other than the partner or director concerned and the transaction must be handled by that other partner or director. If you are a sole practitioner and require the loan of deeds in connection with your own mortgage, you must nominate a different firm on our panel to request the deeds and handle the transaction.

BSA lenders do not come within the top 20 lenders in terms of frequency of questions. The most popular lender panels in terms of questions are as follows:

• Santander Conveyancing Panel
• National Westminster Bank Conveyancing Panel
• Royal Bank of Scotland Conveyancing Panel
• HSBC Conveyancing Panel
• Lloyds Conveyancing Panel