Lloyds TSB Scotland Conveyancing Panel Information

Although not necessarily published, lenders have varying criteria . We do not hold specific requirements relating to the questions raised as part of the application to be on the Lloyds TSB Scotland conveyancing panel. Typically lenders need to have full knowledge of a firm including (but not limited to):

Full career history for each solicitor including admission date to the relevant Law Society

List of all those staff who work within the conveyancing team

purchase and remortgage)

House price discrepancies (declared to lender vs. registered at Land Registry)

Full complaints history for each conveyancing solicitor

conveyancer client account(s) details

Charge registration history

Structure of firm and, where applicable, its group

List of fee-earners who are foreign qualified

PII Cover details, including, if relevant, whether the firm is or has been in the assigned risks pool and structure of cover – basic

We can't comment specifically on Lloyds TSB Scotland. 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 COLP but a firm should not send the complete conveyancing file without the buyer client’s express consent – and if she is in arrears with the lender she 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 are valid. Please click here for more information about that case.

What you should do largely depends on the reason that your firm has been removed off the Lloyds TSB Scotland 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 compliance officer 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 Lloyds TSB Scotland conveyancing panel.

The Law Society’s CQS membership gives no guarantee to lender panel acceptance. Nevertheless the CML have indicated that it is likely to become a prerequisite for firms wishing to remain on their panels. A number of mortgage companies now use the scheme as the starting point for Panel acceptance such as Santander.

You need to contact Lloyds TSB Scotland to obtain standard documents. The The Council of Mortgage Lenders Handbook has an express section for lenders to reveal who to contact to obtain standard documents. Lloyds TSB Scotland in their Part 2’s state: You will need to quote your Lloyds TSB Scotland conveyancing panel reference.