Solicitor Sole Practitioners Group

SPG opposes policies of lenders who do not allow SPs to act for them. SPG had had success in the past of convincing lenders to accept SPs and will continue its campaign.

Despite representations from SPG and the Law Society, the changes to panel criteria in the last 18 months, by restricting or culling SPs and small firms, especially in the case of Banks, has been moving very quickly and it is impossible to keep pace with them. As a result, the “Lender List” you usually find here has been removed.

Ian Lithman is one of the two Sole Practitioner Council Members and for the last 9 years has been responsible for opposing Lender discrimination against Sole Practitioners. The result had been quite successful, following the Mortgage Express case, in having a number of smaller lenders restoring SPs to their panel en bloc. However, since the present financial crisis, the forth coming ABS regime, the appearance of mortgage fraud and the merger of Building Societies, the Banks and Building Societies have reduced the number of their loans and have decided to reduce their panels.

The SP has always been the first port of call for the lenders culling of panels because we can not insure against our own fraud, we have no partners to cover our presumed dishonesty and the lender's recourse is only to the Compensation Fund, which is discretionary and a fund of last resort that does not always pay lenders costs and loss of interest.

The SPG has tried to arrange a stand alone policy for each conveyancing transaction to cover lenders against fraud where the lender would be the insured but there are no takers in the insurance business for that risk. However the SPG is pursuing another avenue which might satisfy the lenders, but this is early days.

Please contact Ian if he can be of assistance, as the SPG is always here to represent your views to help you if we can and to hear your personal experience of these issues which enables us and the Law Society to support and represent you.

Ian Lithman of Lithman & Co, 72 Wimpole Street, London W1M 7DD.

May 2010

Fiona Woolf's Letter to Bristol & West

LENDERS LIST reported by SP members as refusing to instruct them or imposing unacceptable conditions. Some Lenders are too small or specialised to warrant using Solicitors other than their own preferred firm and others act merely as brokers.

1. Lenders that accept SPs without Special Conditions

Bradford & Bingley plc
Brittania Building Society
Cheshire Building Society
Claycross Building Society
Derbyshire Building Society
Derbyshire Home Loans
Fortis Bank
Kent Reliance Building Society
Legal & General Ltd
Mortgage Express
Northern Rock plc
The Mortgage Business

2. Lenders that accept SPs with Monetary Conditions

C&G
Portman Building Society
Woolwich plc

3. Lenders that accept SPs with Area Conditions

Ipswich Building Society
Leeds & Holbeck Building Society
Norwich & Peterborough Building Society
Nottingham Building Society
Newbury Building Society
Principality Building Society
Stroud & Swindon Building Society

4. Lenders that accept SP with Maximum Loan Conditions

Alliance & Leicester Building Society
National Westminster Bank
Royal Bank of Scotland

5. Lenders that accept SPs with other Special Conditions

Abbey National Building Society
Advance Home Loans
Chelsea Building Society
Dudley Building Society
HBOS
Lloyds
Newcastle Building Society
Platform Home Loans
Prudential Banking plc / Egg
Scarborough Building Society
Scottish Widows Bank
Sunbank plc

6. Lenders who refuse to accept SPs or add SPs to their panel

Alpha Bank
Adams & Co
Bank of Ireland Residential Lending
Bristol & West PLC
Brittanic Money
Capital Home Loans
Chelsea
Cheltenham & Gloucester
Co-operative Bank
Co-op Britannia
Freedom Lending
Future Mortgages
General Motors Finance Ltd
GMAC Residential Funding
High Street Home Loans
Kensington Mortgage Co
National Counties Building Society
Paragon Mortgage Ltd
Saffron Walden Building Society
Skipton Building Society
Southern Pacific Mortgage Ltd
West Bromwich Building Society

7. Lenders who have not responded

City Bank
Darlington Building Society
Eagle Star
Harpenden Building Society
London Mortgage Company
Market Harborough Building Society
Mortgage Business plc
Preferred Mortgages Ltd
Saffron Walden Mortgage Services Ltd

8. Lenders whose information has not been provided by reporting member and are not CML members

Mortgage Options
Preston Building Society
Prime Home Loans