How to Check Your Solicitor on Santander's Panel

Lender Panel Guide

Santander Approved Solicitor & Conveyancing Panel

Buying or remortgaging with Santander? Check whether your solicitor is on the bank’s approved panel before you instruct — or risk delays, a second set of legal fees, and a transaction that stalls at the worst moment.

Check the firm before you instruct

Free to search, no registration, covering approved firms across England and Wales.

Search the Santander panel

Where the same conveyancer is to act for you and for Santander, that firm must be on Santander’s approved panel. The conveyancer then represents both you and the bank, and must comply with the bank’s requirements as well as your instructions.

The check takes a couple of minutes. It is worth doing before you instruct anyone rather than after, because the cost of getting it wrong rises the further into a transaction you are.

How to check your solicitor is on the panel

Search the panel directory
The Santander directory on LenderMonitor lists approved firms across England and Wales. Search by firm name or by area.
Check the office, not the firm
Approval attaches to an individual office. A firm with five branches may have fewer than five on the panel, so check the branch that will actually hold your file.
Ask the firm to confirm in writing
Ask the firm for a dated email confirming that the office handling your matter is currently authorised to act for Santander on your type of transaction.

Both that email and a directory search are point-in-time evidence: panels change, and neither protects you if the position changes later. Check both, and check again if there is a long gap before completion.
Do it before you pay anything
Before the search fee, before the money on account. Everything about fixing a panel problem gets more expensive once the file is open.

Where Lender Exchange comes into it

Santander administers its conveyancing panel through Lender Exchange, the shared platform a number of major lenders use to vet and monitor firms. Registration there covers the checks a lender wants done once rather than separately: insurance, regulatory standing, annual review.

A firm’s registration on Lender Exchange has to be current, but registration on the platform is not itself approval by Santander. The firm has to be shown as active for Santander specifically. A registration that lapses, for reasons as mundane as an out-of-date insurance certificate, can take a firm off the panel without any change in the quality of its conveyancing.

Being on the panel is the start, not the end

Panel approval means Santander is willing to work with the firm. It does not mean the case will run smoothly. Once instructed, your conveyancer works to the UK Finance Mortgage Lenders’ Handbook: Part 1 sets out the instructions common to every lender, and Part 2 is where each lender records its own requirements. Santander’s Part 2 is long, specific, and revised without notice.

You do not need to read it — your conveyancer does, and is bound by it — but it helps to know which parts of a transaction it touches, because those are the parts where a case tends to slow down.

The title and the tenure
How the property is held, and whether that form of ownership is one the bank will lend on. Unusual arrangements are worth mentioning to your conveyancer early rather than letting them surface in the title pack.
The lease, if it is leasehold
Length, ground rent, service charge and the management arrangements behind them. Leasehold is where lenders’ requirements differ most from each other, and where a problem takes longest to fix, because it usually needs the landlord’s cooperation.
New build and recent construction
Which warranty is in place, who supervised the build, and what the developer is contributing to the purchase. Lenders keep their own lists of acceptable warranty providers and revise them.
The money and the timing
How much notice the bank needs to release the advance, and what happens to the money if completion does not go ahead on the day. A slipped completion date has costs attached that most borrowers do not expect.
After completion
Registration at the Land Registry and the documents that have to reach the lender afterwards, within its own deadlines.

Ask, and get the answer in writing

Lender requirements change without notice and this page is general information, not a statement of Santander’s current position. If something specific matters to your transaction — the lease, the warranty, the completion date — ask your conveyancer to confirm the bank’s position on it in writing.

If your solicitor is not on the panel

A firm that is not on Santander’s panel cannot receive the mortgage advance while acting for the bank. Depending on the type and stage of your transaction, the possible routes include the following.

Move to an approved firm

Available on any transaction, usually the cleanest, and cheaper the earlier it happens. Where searches have already been ordered, ask the incoming firm which of them it can accept — some can be relied on or transferred, others have to be reordered, and it depends on the provider and the search type.

Separate representation, for eligible residential purchases

On a residential purchase, Santander will appoint one of its panel solicitors to act for the bank while your chosen solicitor continues to act for you. You are responsible for both firms’ legal fees, and the extra coordination between them can lengthen the transaction.

Santander does not accept separate representation on buy-to-let or remortgage applications. On those, the firm acting has to be on the panel.

Your firm applies to join

Applications run through Lender Exchange, which handles registration, insurance checks and annual reviews for the lenders that use it. It is a process with its own timetable and no guaranteed outcome, so it is worth pursuing on its own merits rather than relying on it for a transaction already under way.

Check the branch, not the brand

Panel membership attaches to an office rather than to a letterhead. A firm with four offices may have fewer than four approved, so confirm the branch handling your file, in writing, before you pay anything.

Five questions worth asking before you instruct

Is this office on the Santander panel, and can you confirm that in writing?
Branch-level, dated, and specific to the type of transaction you are doing.
Have you acted on Santander cases recently?
Familiarity with a lender’s paperwork and portals is worth something, particularly on a tight timetable.
If this is leasehold, when will you check the lease against the lender’s requirements?
Leasehold problems take the longest to fix because they usually involve the landlord. You want that check early, not at exchange.
On a new build, will you confirm the warranty is one Santander accepts?
Lists of acceptable warranty providers differ between lenders and change over time.
Who will actually handle the file, and how will I reach them?
A named person and a direct route to them. Many frustrations with conveyancing come from poor communication, or from uncertainty about who is dealing with the matter.

Common questions

Why does Santander have a panel at all?

Where one conveyancer acts for both sides of the mortgage, that firm is acting for you and for the lender at the same time. The panel is how the lender satisfies itself that the firm carries the right insurance, is properly regulated, and will follow its instructions.

What is Part 2 of the Lenders’ Handbook?

The UK Finance Mortgage Lenders’ Handbook sets out what lenders expect of the conveyancers acting for them. Part 1 is common to everyone; Part 2 is where each lender records its own requirements. It is the reason two lenders can take different views of the same property, and it is amended by lenders without notice.

Does this apply to remortgages as well as purchases?

Yes. For a Santander remortgage, separate representation is not available, so the firm handling the matter must be on the panel. A remortgage is often quicker than a purchase, which makes a panel problem found late just as disruptive when you are trying to meet a rate deadline.

Can a firm be removed from the panel?

Yes, at any time, and for administrative reasons as much as anything else. That is why it is worth confirming the position with the firm and checking a current directory, rather than relying on either alone.

Does being on Santander’s panel mean a firm is on other lenders’ panels?

No. Each lender sets its own criteria. Santander uses Lender Exchange, which several lenders share, but registration there is not the same as approval by every lender that uses it.

What happens if I instruct a firm that turns out not to be on the panel?

A firm that is not on the panel cannot receive the mortgage advance while acting for Santander. On a residential purchase, Santander will appoint its own panel solicitor to act for it alongside your firm, which means paying both firms’ fees. On a buy-to-let or remortgage application that option is not available, so the firm acting has to be changed.

Find a conveyancer on the Santander panel

Free to search, no registration, covering approved firms across England and Wales.

Search the panel

This article is for general information only and is not legal or financial advice. It does not set out Santander’s requirements; those are contained in the bank’s own Part 2 of the UK Finance Mortgage Lenders’ Handbook and are revised without notice. Panel membership and the bank’s approach to separate representation can change at any time. Always confirm your conveyancer’s current panel status, and the bank’s current requirements, before instructing.

How to Check Your Solicitor on Santander’s Panel