Magellan Homeloans Conveyancing Panel Information

The information on this page is designed to keep solicitors and licensed conveyancers abreast of latest requirements changes by Magellan Homeloans and to assist in remaining on the Magellan Homeloans Solicitor Panel.

Magellan Homeloans Solicitor Panel: Recently Asked Questions

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Do you have any idea what Lenders such as Magellan Homeloans are asking for when it comes to applying to be on their approved conveyancing panel?
Criteria differ from lender to lender. We do not hold specific requirements relating to the questions raised as part of the application to be on the Magellan Homeloans conveyancing panel. Typically lenders need to have full knowledge of a firm including (but not limited to):
  • Automated alerting to inform lenders when there is a fundamental change to the firm (e.g. change of name)
  • conveyancer client account(s) details
  • The percentage of the firm’s business which is conveyancing (broken down into sale
  • Number of partners per branch of the firm
  • Whether the firm has ever accepted instructions in respect of property clubs and investment schemes
  • SRA or equivalent regulator registration number where applicable
  • Whether the firm has ever knowingly accepted instructions on transactions involving Sale and Rent Back, Back to Back, Exchange and Delayed Completion and Lease Option, Below Market Value.
  • List of all solicitors within firm
  • Full disciplinary history for each conveyancing solicitor
  • Structure of firm and, where applicable, its group
  • A recent SRA survey reveals that 76% of solicitors have been removed from a lender conveyancing panel. Magellan Homeloans and other lenders have restricted their panel over the years. Why?
    In operating open conveyancing panels, lenders such as Magellan Homeloans face a number of fraud and negligence risks. While there is no authoritative source of data on lender exposure to solicitor–led mortgage fraud, anecdotal evidence from lenders indicates exposure on individual cases are often in the millions of pounds. The National Fraud Authority estimates that £1bn per year is lost in mortgage -related frauds in total, which is seen as a conservative estimate.

    These risks are exacerbated by the lack of a comprehensive set of data on all conveyancing firms (which, for the avoidance of doubt, would include solicitors and conveyancers across the UK) which is in a readily accessible format. Currently, lenders vet the suitability of their panel firms against a variety of disparate, incomplete and potentially inaccurate sets of information. One top 5 lender pointed out to us that it is almost impossible to track individual fraudsters who move from firm to firm, especially where they are no longer registered or no longer hold a valid practicing certificate.

    Magellan Homeloans and other 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. There is also regulatory impetus on lenders to ensure that they have satisfactory oversight of their third party panels, including a due-diligence process.

    Theoretically Magellan Homeloans could request or audit my files as I am on the Magellan Homeloans conveyancing panel. Are there any confidentiality issues that I need to consider first?
    We can't comment specifically on Magellan Homeloans. 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 borrower 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 he is in arrears 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 are valid. Please click here for more information about that case.

    We are acting for a seller of a property and we have received a letter from the buyers solicitors who are not on the Magellan Homeloans conveyancing panel requesting that we undertake to send certain post-completion documents to a law firm on the approved solicitor list for Magellan Homeloans. How has this come about?
    You will be aware of the trend in recent years for lenders such as Magellan Homeloans 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 Magellan Homeloans panel. The situation that you find yourself in is where your client’s purchaser has his/her own lawyer and Magellan Homeloans 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 Magellan Homeloans’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 Magellan Homeloans. You will no doubt be required to undertake directly to Magellan Homeloans’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 Magellan Homeloans conveyancing panel.
    My firm has just been advised that it’s Magellan Homeloans panel membership terminated but we have not yet been given an explanation yet. I am completing a CQS application form what details do I need to report?
    In the circumstances please explain on the application what steps you have taken to find out the reasons behind cancellation of your Magellan Homeloans panel membership. In particular please provide details if you have received communications from the lender. E.G. before cessation of your panel membership did you receive any letters or calls from the lender advising you as to their reasons?
    My firm is listed on the Magellan Homeloans conveyancing panel and due to complete a purchase within the next few weeks. My papers do not include a Mortgage Deed for the client to execute. Who do I contact at Magellan Homeloans to obtain duplicate documents?
    You should contact Magellan Homeloans to obtain standard documents. The The Council of Mortgage Lenders Handbook incorporates an individual section for banks to reveal who to contact to obtain standard documents. Magellan Homeloans in their Part 2’s state:
    It helps to quote the firm’s Magellan Homeloans solicitors panel number.

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    Average number of days to register title including a charge in favour of Magellan Homeloans
    This information relates to purchase only and not remortgages.
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    * Data aggregated from sources including COMPLETIONmonitor