Sainsbury's Bank Conveyancing Panel Information

The Council of Mortgage Lenders (or the BSA) do not involve themselves in training but they do provided a number of useful conveyancing related conferences which are attended by firms on the Sainsbury's Bank conveyancing panel. We do intend to run specific lender focused seminars in the coming months including a webinar on Sainsbury's Bank’s Part 2 requirements. Practitioners on the Sainsbury's Bank conveyancing panel will be invited. Information about the webinar will be communicated as part of the LENDERmonitor P2 change Notifications.

We can't comment specifically on Sainsbury's Bank. Many major lenders are now introducing ‘file auditing’ as standard practice in relation to completed matters. This raises questions of confidentiality in relation to the buyer client and the purpose to which the results of such audits will be put. The starting point is to remember that the file does not belong to your firm, it belongs to the ‘client’. But, of course, we will normally have two clients – the buyer and the lender - and you will owe a duty of confidentiality to each. So basically, you have to separate the file and just send the lender the parts solely relating to themselves. But, of course, as this will basically be correspondence with the lender, mortgage instructions etc.

Check with your COLP but a firm should not send the complete conveyancing file without the buyer client’s express consent – and if she is in dispute with the lender he is hardly likely to agree. However, if the lender can establish a prima facie case of fraud, then you may be under an obligation to disclose the whole file.

The emerging convention is that lenders are including an authority to disclose in loan application forms to counter this problem. Mortgage Express v Sawali, [2010] EWHC 3054 (Ch) indicates that such provisions are valid. Please click here for more information about that case.

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

• Disclosure/Notification to Lender analysis indicating frequency and nature of disclosures - to include benchmarking analysis against aggregate data
• Buy to Let transactions
• Analysis as to the nature of clients (e.g.existing/new/seen in person)
• The percentage of the firm’s business which is conveyancing (broken down into sale/purchase and remortgage)
• Average time frame to send deeds to the lender (calculated from completion date or title registration)

During 2013, 0 sections of the UK Finance Lenders’ Handbook P2 were changed by Sainsbury's Bank. Some changes are more important than others but as a firm on the Sainsbury's Bank conveyancing panel you are of course obliged to comply with individual lender requirements, as set out in Part II of the UK Finance Lenders’ Handbook. Locktons have recently pointed out in an article that non-compliance with Part 2 requirements account for a number of high value claims, and it is therefore important to be aware of any particularly onerous terms that an individual lender may impose.

Remember: CML requirements are not guidelines; they are the lender client’s instructions.

In the circumstances please explain on the application what action you have taken to discover the reasons behind cancellation of your Sainsbury's Bank panel status. In particular please provide details if you have received communications from the lender. E.G. before termination of your panel membership did you receive any letters or calls from the lender advising you as to their reasons?

You need to get in touch with Sainsbury's Bank to obtain standard documents. The The Council of Mortgage Lenders Handbook has an explicit inquiry for lenders to set out who to contact to obtain standard documents. Sainsbury's Bank in their Part 2’s state: Always remember to disclose your Sainsbury's Bank solicitors panel reference.