Saffron Building Society Conveyancing Panel Information

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

Please tread carefully here as what you are suggesting 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 must 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.

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

Saffron Building Society approved solicitors are bound by the UK Finance Lenders’ Handbook instructions relating to Transfer of Equity. These are set out in Section 16.3. First, your firm must approve the form of Transfer of Equity (which should be in the Land Registry's standard form) and, if Saffron Building Society require, the deed of covenant on their behalf. You will need to check Saffron Building Society CML Part 2 conditions to see if Saffron Building Society have standard forms of transfer and deed of covenant. Please note that this requirement can change from one transaction to another so do check! Second,When drafting or approving a transfer, you should bear in mind that: although the transfer should state that it is subject to the mortgage (identified by date and parties), it need give no details of the terms of the mortgage; the transfer need not state the amount of the mortgage debt. If it does, the figure should include both principal and interest at the date of completion, which you must check ; there should be no statement that all interest has been paid to date. Further obligations are set out in the UK Finance Lenders’ Handbook which have to be followed by all firms on the Saffron Building Society conveyancing panel

Your insurance brokers are your best port of call to address this question. 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 Saffron 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 Saffron Building Society to obtain standard documents. The The Council of Mortgage Lenders Handbook incorporates an individual section for banks to establish who to contact to obtain standard documents. Saffron Building Society in their Part 2’s state: It helps to disclose your Saffron Building Society conveyancing panel number.