Sainsbury's Bank Conveyancing Panel Information

Most lenders do not operate a specific buy to let conveyancing panel but we are hearing about a few that do. We do not know what the position is with Sainsbury's Bank as at todays date. If you're about to receive instructions from a client on a buy to let purchase with a mortgage from Sainsbury's Bank we suggest that you call Sainsbury's Bank to check the position.

What you should do largely depends on the reason that your firm has been removed off the Sainsbury's Bank 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 COLP 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 Sainsbury's Bank conveyancing panel.

You need to be careful here as what you are proposing may not be acceptable to the lender. It is possible that you (as a non-panel firm) or the mortgage applicant are not entitled instruct a panel firm of your choice. Many lenders make 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 conveyancing firm. 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 Sainsbury's Bank 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 Sainsbury's Bank panel. The situation that you find yourself in is where your client’s purchaser has his/her own lawyer and Sainsbury's Bank 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 Sainsbury's Bank’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 Sainsbury's Bank. You will no doubt be required to undertake directly to Sainsbury's Bank’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 Sainsbury's Bank conveyancing panel.

In the circumstances please clarify on the form what steps you have taken to find out 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 revocation of your panel membership did you receive any letters or calls from the lender informing you as to why they reached this decision?

You need to get in touch with Sainsbury's Bank to obtain standard documents. The The Council of Mortgage Lenders Handbook contains an individual question for banks to set out who to contact to obtain standard documents. Sainsbury's Bank in their Part 2’s state: Always remember to disclose the firm’s Sainsbury's Bank solicitors panel number.