Nationwide Building Society Conveyancing Panel Information

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

The answer to this question really depends on the reason that your firm has been removed off the Nationwide Building Society 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 Nationwide Building Society conveyancing panel.

With banks and solicitors working so closely together 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 Nationwide Building Society conveyancing panel but for all lender panel listings

It would be advisable to provide details of the date of removal, information on the reason for removal, date of appeal and any reason given for reinstatement. This should not adversely impact your firm’s application but gives the Law Society a complete picture of what has occured.

You would be advised to communicate with Nationwide Building Society to obtain standard documents. The CML Handbook includes an explicit question for lenders to set out who to contact to obtain standard documents. Nationwide Building Society in their Part 2’s state: Always remember to quote your Nationwide Building Society solicitors panel number.