Kensington Mortgage Conveyancing Panel : Questions and Answers
from members of the public
My husband and I are first time buyers. Within the 48 hours our lawyer has forwarded the sale agreement to sign with a detailed report in anticipation of exchanging contracts shortly. Kensington Mortgage have this morning contacted us to advise us that they have now hit a problem as our solicitor is not on their conveyancing panel. What do we do from here?
If you are buying a property with the assistance of a mortgage it is usual for the purchaser's solicitors to also act for the purchaser's lender.
In order to act for a bank or building society a law firm has to be on that lender's conveyancing panel. An application has to be made by the law firm to the lender to become a member of the lender's panel and there are increasingly strict criteria which the firm has to satisfy and indeed some lenders now require their panel members to be part of the Law Society’s Conveyancing Quality Scheme.
Your solicitors should contact Kensington Mortgage and see if they can apply for membership of the Kensington Mortgage conveyancing panel, but if that is not viable Kensington Mortgage will instruct their own lawyers to represent them. You are not legally obliged to appoint a law firm on the Kensington Mortgage conveyancing panel and you may continue to use your own solicitors, in which case your legal fees may increase, and it may delay matters as you have another set of people involved.
My partner and I intend to remortgage our flat with Kensington Mortgage. We have a son 19 who lives with us. The solicitor on the Kensington Mortgage conveyancing panel requested us to identify anyone over the age of 17 other than ourselves who reside at the property. Our lawyer has now e-mailed a document for our son to sign, giving up any rights in the event that the property is repossessed. I have two concerns (1) Is this document specific to the Kensington Mortgage conveyancing panel as he never had to sign this form when we purchased 3 years ago (2) Does our son by signing this giving up his rights to inherit the property?
First, rest assured that your Kensington Mortgage conveyancing panel solicitor is doing the right thing as it is established procedure for any occupier who is aged 17 or over to sign the necessary Consent Form, which is purely to state that any rights he has in the property are postponed and secondary to Kensington Mortgage .This is solely used to protect the Kensington Mortgage if the property were re-possessed so that in such circumstances, your son would be legally obliged to leave.
It does not impact your son’s right to inherit the apartment. Please note that if your son were to inherit and the mortgage in favour of Kensington Mortgage had not been discharged, he would be liable to take over the loan or pay it off, but other than that, there is nothing stopping him from keeping the property in accordance with your will or the rules of intestacy.
I am looking to buy a flat and need a conveyancing solicitor in Leeds who is on the Kensington Mortgage solicitor. Could you point me in the right direction as regards a firm?
Our service is a directory service for firms who wish to be listed as being on the approved conveyancing panel for Kensington Mortgage . We don’t recommend any particular firm.
The lawyers that I appointed last week on my purchase in Newcastle has without warning closed. I only went with them because I needed a solicitor on the Kensington Mortgage conveyancing panel and my family lawyer was not. I paid them £200 on account. What do I do now?
If you have an estate agent involved then inform them straight away so that they advise the vendors that there may be a slight delay due to the problems encountered. Most sellers would be sympathetic and urge their lawyer to send a new set of papers to your new solicitors. You will need to appoint new lawyers that are on the Kensington Mortgage conveyancing panel and notify the lender. If you have paid over any money it will hopefully be held by the SRA as money in an intervened firm's bank accounts is transferred to the SRA. Then, the SRA or the intervention agent looks at the intervened firm's accounts to work out who the money belongs to. To claim your money you will need to contact the SRA. If the SRA cannot return money you are owed from the firm's bank accounts, or if they can only return part of the money, you can apply to the Compensation Fund for a grant. Your new solicitors should be in a position to assist
Do conveyancing lawyers on the Kensington Mortgage conveyancing panel work on a no sale no fee basis?
There is generally no requirements by lenders for their firms to operate on a no-sale-no-fee basis. There a small number of lenders who operate a very restricted conveyancing panel managed by a third party company (often termed in the industry as a ‘gatekeeper’). That third party may impose certain conditions such as non-sale-no fee on the panel firms. If you require this as a condition of your conveyancing then you should check with the conveyancing firm that this is part of their service
On the whole I have been dissatisfied with the level or service received from my lawyer. Is there a Kensington Mortgage conveyancing panel complaints department or do I complain directly to the law firm?
There is little point in complaining directly to Kensington Mortgage. All solicitors and conveyancer must have a complaints procedure. Usually one can find this information from the solicitor’s or conveyancer’s website or ask at their office. They must tell you about it if you ask.
The Legal Ombudsman will make sure that your complaint is addressed by the solicitor. It can also advise you how to complain.
If a licensed conveyancer does not have a complaints procedure or will not tell you about it, contact the Council for Licensed Conveyancers (CLC), which will make sure that your complaint is properly dealt with by the conveyancer. Please see below for more information.
I had an offer accepted on a house on the 6th January 2014, valuation was booked 4 days after, received a clean bill of health. Conveyancer appointed, so all that was missing was my mortgage offer. Having made daily calls to Kensington Mortgage and chasing them on my offer I have now been told that my offer will not be issued unless the lawyer is on the Kensington Mortgage conveyancing panel. Are Kensington Mortgage entitled to hold back the Mortgage pending the lawyer being on the approved list?
Mortgage companies tend not to not issue an offer until they have details of a lawyer on their panel. It can take a few weeks for Kensington Mortgage to deal with your lawyers application to be on the Kensington Mortgage conveyancing panel. There's no guarantee that your solicitors will be accepted.
