Tag: CML Handbook
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Are you going straight to tribunal if you breach the CML handbook?
Over the last few years, the SRA and Scottish Solicitors’ Discipline Tribunal have taken disciplinary action against firms appear to have failed to comply with requirements to report key facts about transactions to lenders. The focus has been on significant failures to comply with CML Handbook requirements which, when followed, will reduce the risk of…
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AmTrust-insured solicitors prepare for significant CML Handbook amendments
Legal risk experts Lexsure will be giving conveyancers with AmTrust PI insurance an exclusive sneak-preview of the most extensive set of Handbook changes in twelve years. The Council of Mortgage Lenders have notified Lexsure that they intend to publish important amendments to the CML Lenders’ Handbook for England and Wales on 1 December. The changes…
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6 Month Rule Starting to be Extended By Lenders
In recent years a number of solicitors have been found guilty of professional misconduct after breaching the six month rule requiring conveyancing solicitors, to report any transactions in which the property being purchased/remortgaged has been owned by the owner or registered proprietor for fewer than six months. The rule, contained in the Council of Mortgage…
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Rooftop Mortgages Conveyancing Panel – New Part 2 Requirements
Conveyancing solicitors on the Rooftop Mortgages Conveyancing Panel can, as from today, carry out personal local authority searches as opposed to being required to carry out official searches. In a change to the lender’s CML Handbook Part Two requirements the answer to section 5.4.5 (Does the lender accept personal searches and, if yes, what are…
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Could Conveyancing Firms Survive Stress Tests?
News that Britain’s biggest banks and building societies could be forced to demonstrate their ability to withstand a house price slump of roughly 35% got us thinking about the repercussions of that scenario for conveyancing firms. Consider the aftermath of that scenario for conveyancing firms: Quite apart from the strain on the financial stability of a conveyancing…
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Lenders Scale Back Commitment to Submit Electronic DS1's
Lenders such as RBS, Direct Line, Virgin One and National Westminster Bank have scaled back from their previous commitment to ‘endeavour to submit an Electronic DS1 to HM Land Registry within five working days’. The CML Handbook Part 2 change has resulted in the lenders stating ‘wherever possible we will endeavour to submit an Electronic…
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Defending a bad valuation: Reading between the lines of the surveyors £100k victory
It seems like conveyancing solicitors have become the punching bag for industry errors. While the £100,000 sum ordered to be paid in a recent court decision against Goldsmith Williams made the headlines, two points caught my eye. The surveyors’ case is that the law firm failed, in breach of the terms of its contract with…
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Will Broadband Soon be a CML Handbook Concern?
There’s a buzz growing around the effect on house prices of slow broadband. The Telegraph weighed in last week, claiming that slow broadband wipes 20% off house prices. The article led Darlington’s solicitor James Swede to blog that “given the apparent importance and value of an internet connection, if a buyer’s solicitor does not make an…
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The Lloyds Warning That is Equally Applicable to Conveyancers
Lloyds Banking Group has warned brokers that the increase in paper work associated with the Mortgage Market Review changes may increase the risk of fraud and they need to remain vigilant. In the same way that brokers are faced with new administrative burdens the same is also true of conveyancers who in recent times face…
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Latest HSBC CML Handbook Change will Have Conveyancers Tied up in Knots
What should otherwise be a simple ”yes-or no” question instead stands as just the latest example of how lenders use the CML Handbook to heap more complex and onerous obligations on their conveyancing panel lawyers. But, since nothing is ever simple when it comes to CML Handbook compliance, the question “Does the lender want to…