National Counties Building Society Conveyancing Panel Information

The Law Society of Scotland has advised that solicitors should check their panel status with lenders prior to accepting client instructions to act. The advice is lender-agnostic as it does not relate specifically to solicitors on the National Counties Building Society conveyancing panel. The recommendation arises from the practice of a number of mortgage lenders who remove solicitors from their panels without prior notice as part of their panel management system, which can lead to some solicitors discovering this only once instructed. This is sensible advice as a client finding out midway through a transaction that their lawyer is not on the approved lender panel is very frustrating and can lead to complaints. Many online consumer forums contain posts where someone is complaining about finding that their lawyer is not on a lender conveyancing panel. Such forums include mumsnet.com

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

• The percentage of the firm’s business which is conveyancing (broken down into sale/purchase and remortgage)
• Number of conveyancing cases by lender
• Average time frame to send deeds to the lender (calculated from completion date or title registration)
• Evidence of undertaking logs
• Average time frame to register charges at the Land Registry

In the same way that there is a unique National Counties Building Society conveyancing panel most building societies, operate a conveyancing panel for solicitors and other conveyancers that the lender will instruct. Terms and Conditions and criteria for inclusion on a building society conveyancing panel vary from lender-to-lender. Having CQS accreditation may be a requirement. Institutional lenders, such as a building society, is a client and is entitled to instruct the solicitor or conveyancer of its choosing (who, in turn, is free to accept or refuse instructions). Therefore, if lender and borrower cannot agree which solicitor or conveyancer should represent them jointly, they would usually proceed on a separate representation basis. The BSA have not published the equivalent of the UK Finance Lenders’ Handbook Part 3s.

With banks and conveyancers working so closely with one another it is surprising that there has not been greater demand for the introduction of a bit of transparency regarding not just the figures for the National Counties Building Society conveyancing panel but for all mortgage panel listings

The Law Society’s CQS membership 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 conveyancing solicitors. A number of mortgage companies now use CQS as the starting point for Panel acceptance such as Santander.

You would be advised to contact National Counties Building Society to obtain standard documents. The CML Handbook incorporates an individual section for lenders to establish who to contact to obtain standard documents. National Counties Building Society in their Part 2’s state: Always remember to quote the firm’s National Counties Building Society conveyancing panel number.