A lender’s published mortgage criteria and its instructions to conveyancers serve different purposes, but both can affect whether a property transaction completes. The practical question is how an underwriting requirement reaches the solicitor responsible for investigating title and reporting to the lender. If the connection is unclear, an issue may need further consideration after a mortgage offer has already been issued.
Hanley Economic Building Society provides a useful example. Its published lending criteria include a Credit Risk & Lending Policy with a live date of 15 June 2026. The examples below use that document to identify questions worth checking against the instructions on an individual conveyancing file.
What is the difference between lending criteria and BSA mortgage instructions?
Lending criteria explain the business a society is prepared to consider: the borrower, loan and property must fall within its lending approach. Conveyancing instructions specify the legal work, confirmations and reports required from the lawyer acting for the lender.
The BSA Mortgage Instructions comprise core instructions and each participating lender’s Specific Requirements. Hanley Economic appears on the BSA’s list of participating lenders. For an actual transaction, the mortgage offer, special conditions and subsequent instructions must also be considered.
That matters when comparing documents. A requirement might reach the conveyancer through an offer condition or a response to a report. Its absence from one published document would not, by itself, establish that the conveyancer was never instructed about it. Equally, a statement in an underwriting policy that anticipates legal confirmation leaves a practical question: where and how is that confirmation requested?
Five Hanley Economic mortgage criteria worth checking on the file
The following is a summary of selected provisions in the June 2026 policy. The final column identifies the corresponding conveyancing question; it does not describe the wording of Hanley’s current BSA Specific Requirements.
| Issue | Published policy | Conveyancing question |
|---|---|---|
| Lease length | 85 years at valuation; shared ownership uses completion. | Which date governs the required legal confirmation? |
| Flying freehold | More than 25% appears in the unacceptable property list. | Has the extent been established and considered? |
| Cladding | The unacceptable list includes multi-storey blocks with EWS1 ratings A3 or B2. | What building-specific evidence and instructions apply? |
| Shared ownership | Provider registration requirements accompany a for-profit housing association exclusion. | Has this particular provider been accepted? |
| Building warranties | The BLP entry carries a cessation/review annotation. | Is the particular existing cover acceptable? |
Source: Hanley Economic Credit Risk & Lending Policy, June 2026, sections 3.2.2, 3.4, 3.8, 10.4 and 10.7. These are selected criteria; the full policy and transaction instructions provide the context.
Why an offer may still leave a legal question unresolved
Consider a hypothetical purchase where the conveyancer identifies a property feature requiring referral. The lender has already made an offer, but the report supplies information that may not have been apparent during underwriting. The lender now has to decide whether the offer can proceed on the facts disclosed.
A reporting process can work exactly as intended and still produce a difficult conversation with the buyer. Searches may have been paid for, a chain may be waiting and everyone may have treated the offer as a significant milestone. The useful question is whether the relevant information could reasonably have reached the right person earlier.
A strong referral should identify the property feature, explain its significance, provide the relevant evidence and ask for a clear decision. If an apparent difference between documents matters to the outcome, identify both provisions. A general assurance that the case has been approved may leave uncertainty about whether the particular issue was considered.
Does publication make the lending policy part of the solicitor’s instructions?
The starting point is the actual retainer and the documents incorporated into it. A publicly accessible policy should not simply be treated as proof that every provision forms part of the conveyancer’s contractual instructions. The scope of the work, the information available and any later correspondence all need examination.
There is a separate practical question when the conveyancer becomes aware of a potentially relevant inconsistency. Does it affect the ability to give a required confirmation, or call for clarification before proceeding? That question can be addressed directly without making a sweeping claim that panel solicitors must continually monitor every document published for intermediaries.
The BSA itself directs conveyancers with questions about specific requirements to their instructing lender. A file should make the query, response and resulting decision easy to follow. BSA guidance on instruction queries.
Independent legal advice: the underlying law also matters
Hanley’s policy also addresses undue influence safeguards in section 4.3.2, using the phrase “a material part” when describing borrowing benefiting one party. That wording needs to be considered alongside the applicable law. June 2026 policy.
In Waller-Edwards v One Savings Bank plc [2025] UKSC 22, the Supreme Court held that a lender is put on inquiry in a non-commercial hybrid transaction where, viewed from the bank’s perspective, a more than trivial element of the borrowing discharges one borrower’s debts and might not benefit the other financially. The Etridge safeguards must then be followed.
The threshold should not be paraphrased as requiring a substantial share of the total advance. For conveyancers, the task includes identifying the relevant circumstances, checking the lender’s instructions and establishing who can provide the advice and confirmation required. The existence of a policy paragraph does not settle those arrangements on an individual file.
How lenders and conveyancers can reduce avoidable queries
For lenders, a useful review would trace important property criteria through the transaction: who identifies the issue, who decides acceptability and who receives the resulting instruction? Numerical thresholds, evidence requirements and any route for exceptions should be clear to the people expected to act on them. An update to one document should prompt a check of related instructions.
For conveyancing firms, the file should record:
- The applicable instructions: the relevant versions of the core and lender-specific requirements, offer conditions and subsequent directions.
- The facts reported: enough detail for the lender to decide the actual issue, with supporting documents where needed.
- The response received: whether the lender has accepted the position and imposed any further conditions.
- The client’s advice: the remaining uncertainty and its implications before the client commits to the transaction.
These records also help distinguish a requirement that was overlooked from one that was identified, reported and expressly resolved.
Where the FCA Consumer Duty fits
The FCA’s Consumer Duty guidance requires firms within its scope to avoid causing foreseeable harm and support customers in pursuing their financial objectives. It addresses the effect of firms’ actions and omissions across the distribution chain.
In my view, that gives lenders a reason to examine recurring delays caused by unclear or poorly connected requirements. A useful review would ask when the issue first became identifiable, who had the information and whether earlier communication could have prevented wasted expenditure. A difference between two documents does not, on its own, establish a Consumer Duty breach.
Investigating an earlier transaction: check the historical instructions
When a complaint concerns an earlier purchase, the relevant evidence includes what the lender required at the time. Current wording may differ. Depending on the issue, exchange, submission of the certificate of title and completion may each be relevant; more than one historical date may need checking.
The Lexsure Lender Archive’s Hanley Economic records can assist with that investigation. Historical lender requirements should be read alongside the original offer, correspondence and conveyancing file. They help establish the instruction record; whether there was a breach of duty, and whether it caused loss, requires a wider assessment.
For owners who first encounter a problem when selling or remortgaging, WhenIBought’s guide to flying freeholds discovered after purchase explains the issues that may arise and the questions to ask about the original conveyancing. A present-day lending difficulty is a reason to investigate the history carefully, rather than assume what should have happened years earlier.