Examples of recent questions relating to the Penrith Building Society Solicitor Panel
from members of the public
My husband and I are novices when it comes to buying a property. Within the last couple of days our lawyer has sent a preliminary report and documents to look through in anticipation of exchanging contracts shortly. Penrith Building Society have this morning contacted us to inform me that there is now an issue as our solicitor is not on their approved list of lawyers. Is this a problem?
When purchasing a property with the benefit 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 property lawyers should contact Penrith Building Society and see if they can apply for membership of the Penrith Building Society conveyancing panel, but if that is not viable Penrith Building Society will instruct their own solicitors to act. You are not legally obliged to appoint a law firm on the Penrith Building Society conveyancing panel as you are at liberty to use your preferred lawyers, in which case your legal fees may increase, and it may delay matters as you have another set of people involved.
My wife and I are refinancing our maisonette with Penrith Building Society. We have a son 18 who lives with us. The solicitor on the Penrith Building Society conveyancing panel requested us to identify anyone over the age of 17 other than ourselves who reside at the property. The solicitor has now sent a form for our son to sign, giving up any rights in the event that the property is forfeited by the lender. I have a couple of questions (1) Is this document specific to the Penrith Building Society conveyancing panel as he did not need 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 Penrith Building Society 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 Penrith Building Society .This is solely used to protect the Penrith Building Society 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 Penrith Building Society 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.
What tools are available to search for a local solicitor on the Penrith Building Society conveyancing panel? I have a car and am prepared to travel up to 10 miles to meet the lawyer.
Feel free to make use of the find a conveyancing panel search on this website. Please choose the lender and your location and you will see a number of lawyer located nearest you. Alternatively you can type in the name of your proposed law firm and see if they are listed as being on the Penrith Building Society solicitor panel.
I am selling my house. Does my solicitor have to be on the Penrith Building Society conveyancing panel in order to deal with redeeming my mortgage?
Ordinarily, even if your lawyer is not on the Penrith Building Society conveyancing panel they can still act for you on your sale. it might be that the lender will not release the original deeds (if applicable and increasingly irrelevant) until after the mortgage is paid off. You should speak to your lawyer directly before you start the process though to ensure that there is no problem as lenders are changing their requirements fairly frequently at the moment.
When it comes to lenders such as Penrith Building Society do solicitors have to be pay a fee to be on the list of approved solicitors?
We are not aware of any lender fees to be on their panel although some do charge an administration charge to deal with the processing of the conveyancing panel application.
Is it the case that all solicitor firms on the Penrith Building Society conveyancing panel regulated by the Solicitors Regulatory Authority?
As a firm of solicitors, in order to be on the Penrith Building Society conveyancing panel they would need to be regulated by the Solicitors Regulatory Authority. Many lenders do allow licenced conveyancers on their panel in which case such firms would be regulated by the Council of Licensed Conveyancers (CLC).
My offer was accepted on a house on the 17th March 2014, valuation was booked 3 days later, all came back fine. Property lawyer appointed, so all that was missing was my mortgage offer. Having made daily calls to Penrith Building Society and chasing them on my offer I have now been told that my offer will not be issued unless the lawyer is on the Penrith Building Society conveyancing panel. Can the lender hold off the offer?
Mortgage companies tend not to not issue a mortgage until they have details of a lawyer on their panel. It can take a few weeks for Penrith Building Society to deal with your lawyers application to be on the Penrith Building Society conveyancing panel. There's no guarantee that your solicitors will be accepted.
