Principality Building Society Conveyancing Panel Information

The CML, together with Principality Building Society and other lenders created a standard set of instructions where a solicitor is acting for a lender such as Principality Building Society alone in a residential conveyancing matter. These requirements are contained at Part III of the UK Finance Lenders’ Handbook and are to be read in conjunction with Part I and II. The CML have published an example requirements letter to the borrower’s conveyancing solicitor for adaptation by the lender's conveyancer, and sets out to the borrower's conveyancer, the documentary and information requirements of the lender's panel conveyancer.

You need to be careful here as what you are proposing may not be acceptable to the mortgage company. It is possible that you (as a non-panel firm) or the mortgage applicant are not at liberty instruct a panel firm of your choice. An increasing amount of lenders are making it clear to their panel firms that where a non-panel member firm is instructed by one of their mortgage applicants, the lender will appoint a panel firm to carry out its instructions and to liaise with the borrower's conveyancer. You also need to make the costs implications and potential for delay very clear to your client.

When a solicitor is acting for both Principality Building Society and borrower there is potential for conflicts to arise. You owe duties to both clients. All information received by you from your client is confidential and cannot be disclosed without the client’s consent. In the situation you find yourself in if the purchaser will not consent to the information being passed on to the lender the solicitor must cease to act for the Principality Building Society and it may well be prudent you to cease to act for the purchaser as well. You can not tell the Principality Building Society the reason for termination of the retainer over and above the fact that a conflict has arisen. The fact that you can no longer act should alert even the most somnambulistic of lenders that something is wrong with the borrower and/or purchase. The fact that you have disinstructed yourself should not affect your Principality Building Society conveyancing panel status.

The best placed professionals to answer this question are your insurance brokers. The chances are that on the basis that you have not been removed for fraud or negligence reasons that there will be little or no impact. The main reason why a firm would be removed off of a lender panel is due to low volume of conveyancing cases although there may be a number of criteria for Principality Building Society solicitor panel membership. Please remember that it is always important that you complete your insurance forms accurately.

You would be advised to get in touch with Principality Building Society to obtain standard documents. The CML Handbook incorporates an explicit question for banks to cite who to contact to obtain standard documents. It helps to disclose your Principality Building Society solicitors panel reference.