No Lender Lockdown When it Comes to Handbook Changes

In the last three months Lexsure has witnessed significant activity by lenders changing their Handbook requirements. Whilst firms currently encounter a slowdown in activity from buyers and sellers there is no hold-up in lenders revising their instructions to law firms.

Here are some of the facts and figures:

Lender	Sections Changed	Separate Events
Barclays Bank UK PLC	27	2
Halifax	3	1
Aldermore Bank	12	4
Coventry Building Society	3	2
Lloyds	2	1
Atom Bank	13	3
HSBC	1	1

During the same period there has been a significant uptake in services such as LENDERmonitor. I can only assume that this is due to anticipated file requests checking for Handbook breaches. Enquiries by firms concerning the LM04 lender policy search increased by 300% compared to the same period last year.

55% of LM04 searches in the last two months revealed lender changes. The most searched lender was HSBC.

With the end of the lockdown approaching and with a large number of transactions having been put on hold, there will be an inevitable rush to submit Certificates on Title to lenders. It’s easy to get tripped up and miss a Handbook change. Now is not the time to cause serious and irreparable damage to your firm by failing to identify changes to a lender instructions.

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