Manchester Building Society Conveyancing Panel Information

No such training is arranged by the CML however they do host numerous useful legal related conferences which are attended by firms on the Manchester Building Society conveyancing panel. It is our intention to run specific lender focused seminars in the coming months including a webinar on Manchester Building Society’s Part 2 obligations. Solicitors on the Manchester Building Society conveyancing panel will be invited. Further details will be made available as part of the LENDERmonitor Alerts.

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 Manchester Building Society conveyancing panel. Typically lenders need to have full knowledge of a firm including (but not limited to):

purchase and remortgage)

List of all solicitors within firm

Number of partners per branch of the firm

Firm name, address and contact details including all branches (including evidence of existence through risk-based physical visits and Google Streetview checks)

Whether the firm has ever applied for accreditation and the outcome of the application

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

Full complaints history for each conveyancing solicitor

Full complaints history for each licensed conveyancer

List of fee-earners who are foreign qualified

Areas of Law covered by the firm

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

With lenders and property lawyers working so closely with one another it is surprising that there has not been much call for the introduction of a bit of transparency regarding not just the figures for the Manchester Building Society conveyancing panel but for all bank panel listings

The Law Society’s CQS accreditation gives no guarantee to lender panel acceptance. Nevertheless the Council of Mortgage Lenders have indicated that it is likely to become a prerequisite for firms wishing to remain on their approved list of firms. Some mortgage companies now use the Conveyancing Quality Scheme accreditation as the starting point for Panel acceptance as is the case with HSBC.

You need to get in touch with Manchester Building Society to obtain standard documents. The The Council of Mortgage Lenders Handbook has an individual section for lenders to reveal who to contact to obtain standard documents. Manchester Building Society in their Part 2’s state: Please remember to disclose the firm’s Manchester Building Society solicitors panel number.