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approved by Reliance

The first thing you need to do is to contact your lawyer directly. You lawyer should advise you of the situation. If they are not on the panel they may recommend you to a firm that is on the the approved Reliance Bank solicitor panel.

You should not exchange unless you have advised to do so by your lawyer. A precondition to being on the Reliance Bank approved panel is to comply with the CML Handbook requirements (last updated for this lender on Reliance 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 firms on our directory have advised us that they are on the Reliance Bank panel and agreed to advise us to take down their listing in the event of removal off of the Reliance Bank panel. To date we have not been informed by either a bank or a member of the public that the data about a specific firm being on the Reliance Bank conveyancing panel is not accurate.

If you have an estate agent involved then let them know immediately so that they can let the sellers know that there may be a slight delay due to reasons beyond your control. Most sellers would be sympathetic and urge their lawyer to send a new set of papers to your new solicitors. You will need to appoint new lawyers that are on the Reliance Bank conveyancing panel and notify the lender. If you have paid over any money it will hopefully be held by the SRA as money in an intervened firm's bank accounts is transferred to the SRA. Then, the SRA or the intervention agent looks at the intervened firm's accounts to work out who the money belongs to. To claim your money you will need to contact the SRA. If the SRA cannot return money you are owed from the firm's bank accounts, or if they can only return part of the money, you can apply to the Compensation Fund for a grant. Your new solicitors should be in a position to help

A selection of lenders now use CQS as the starting point for Panel membership such as HSBC and Santander. CQS membership however is no guarantee to lender panel acceptance. That being said,the CML have indicated that it is likely to become a pre-requisite for firms wishing to join their panels.

Unfortunately, as long as it is in their Terms and Conditions or Quote then yes your solicitors can charge a fee for this. This fee is not set by Reliance Bank but by your lawyers. Some firms on the Reliance Bank will charge an ‘acting for lender’ fee and others do not.

You should start obtaining conveyancing quotes from solicitors ASAP. Once you decide who you want to use and once your offer is accepted you can instruct them to work for you and pass their details on the the estate agent. As you are getting a mortgage with Reliance Bank , ask your prospective lawyers check they are on the Reliance Bank conveyancing panel otherwise they can't do the mortgage legal work.