New Street Mortgages Conveyancing Panel Information

The criteria to join the New Street Mortgages conveyancing panel is likely to be fairly detailed and is unlikely to include signing up to LENDERmonitor alerts.

The Scottish Law Society 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 New Street Mortgages conveyancing panel. The suggestion 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

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 New Street Mortgages conveyancing panel. Typically lenders need to have full knowledge of a firm including (but not limited to):

Number of lender conveyancing panels the firm is currently on

Structure of firm and, where applicable, its group

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 knowingly accepted instructions on transactions involving Sale and Rent Back, Back to Back, Exchange and Delayed Completion and Lease Option, Below Market Value.

Charge registration history

Full complaints history for each conveyancing solicitor

Whether any lender has ever made a claim against the firm’s PII cover

Number of partners per branch of the firm

Whether the firm has ever accepted instructions in respect of property clubs and investment schemes

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

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

• Average time frame to register charges at the Land Registry
• Average mortgage advance
• The percentage of the firm’s business which is conveyancing (broken down into sale/purchase and remortgage)
• Disclosure/Notification to Lender analysis indicating frequency and nature of disclosures - to include benchmarking analysis against aggregate data
• Average time frame to send deeds to the lender (calculated from completion date or title registration)

In this situation please clarify on the application what steps you have taken to find out the reasons behind cancellation of your New Street Mortgages panel status. 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 putting you on notice?

You should contact New Street Mortgages to obtain standard documents. The CML Handbook includes an individual inquiry for banks to set out who to contact to obtain standard documents. New Street Mortgages in their Part 2’s state: Please remember to quote the firm’s New Street Mortgages conveyancing panel number.