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approved by Ulster Bank

Ulster Bank and other lenders tend to imposes restrictions either the type or the number of conveyancing solicitors on their approved list of lawyers. A common example of such restriction(s) being that a firm must have two or more partners. In addition to restricting the type of firm, some have decided to limit the number of firms they use to represent them. You should note that Ulster Bank have no responsibility for the quality of advice provided by any member of Ulster Bank Conveyancer Panel. Mortgage fraud was a key driver in the rationalisation of conveyancing panels a few years ago and whilst there are differing views about the extent of solicitor involvement in some of that fraud. Statistics from the Land Registry reveal that thousands of law firms only carry out one or two conveyances a year. Those supporting conveyancing panel cuts ask why law firms should have the right to be on a Lender panel when clearly, Conveyancing is not their speciality? To put it another way; would you want a conveyancing solicitor to represent you if you were charged with a crime; probably not.

You should not exchange unless you have advised to do so by your lawyer. A precondition to being on the Ulster Bank approved panel is to comply with the CML Handbook requirements (last updated for this lender on Ulster Bank). The CML Conveyancing Handbook requires that your lawyer have the appropriate Disclosure of Incentive form completed by the developer and accepted by your lender.

The law firm practices themselves provide us confirmation that they are on the Ulster Bank conveyancing panel as opposed to being supplied with a list from Ulster Bank directly.

Ordinarily, even if your lawyer is not on the Ulster Bank 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.

As a firm of solicitors, in order to be on the Ulster Bank conveyancing panel they would need to be regulated by the SRA. Many lenders do allow licenced conveyancers on their panel in which case such firms would be regulated by the Council of Licensed Conveyancers (CLC).

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 Ulster Bank to deal with your lawyers application to be on the Ulster Bank conveyancing panel. There's no guarantee that your solicitors will be accepted.

It is usual to have concerns where there is a chain as you are unlikely to want to be too out of pocket too early (mortgage application is approx £1k, then survey/valuation, conveyancing search costs, etc). First you should check that your solicitor is on the Ulster Bank conveyancing panel. As to the next stages this very much depends on the circumstances of your case, desire for this property and on the state of the market. In a hot mortgage some buyers would pally for the mortgage with Ulster Bank and pay for the valuation and only if it comes back ok would they pay their solicitor to press on with searches.