State Bank of India UK Conveyancing Panel Information

The concern here is if you are expect to enter into ‘more onerous’ conditions that than the Handbook obligations. You have to try and take an objective view as to whether the Terms relating to the State Bank of India UK conveyancing appointment (or other terms for other lenders) are ‘more onerous’ than the UK Finance Lenders’ Handbook Conditions. Depending on the Terms you may need to provide details on your renewal form. If you are in any doubt please call your broker to discuss before completing the answer.

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

State Bank of India UK 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 State Bank of India UK require, the deed of covenant on their behalf. You will need to check State Bank of India UK CML Part 2 conditions to see if State Bank of India UK 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 State Bank of India UK conveyancing panel

The Law Society’s CQS membership is no guarantee to lender panel acceptance. Nevertheless the CML have indicated that it is likely to become a prerequisite for firms wishing to join their approved list of conveyancing solicitors. Some mortgage companies now use the Conveyancing Quality Scheme accreditation as the starting point for Panel approval such as HSBC.

You would be advised to get in touch with State Bank of India UK to obtain standard documents. The CML Handbook includes a specific section for banks to establish who to contact to obtain standard documents. State Bank of India UK in their Part 2’s state: You will need to disclose your State Bank of India UK conveyancing panel reference.