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approved by Kent Reliance

Mortgage companies point to the fact that solicitor-led fraud is thought to be responsible for millions of pounds of fraud every year. The removal of law firms off of lender panels started with the rise in mortgage fraud, which prompted a thematic review by the Financial Services Authority in 2011. Its outcome included recommendations for lenders to review their conveyancing panels, which kicked off a major policy change in the sector. It led to banks and building societies purging less reputable firms off their books

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

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 should appoint new lawyers that are on the Kent Reliance 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 lawyers may be able to help

If you are getting a mortgage with Kent Reliance involved you will need to appoint a solicitor on the Kent Reliance conveyancing panel. We would not encourage you to both use the same solicitors' firm. There are clear conflict of interest issues and it's not going to make a huge difference to the speed of the overall process. So as not to hold things us you should pass on your solicitors details to Kent Reliance. Feel free to use our search tool to look for a licensed conveyancer or solicitor on the Kent Reliance conveyancing panel.

They are simply saying that the cost for acting for the lender is included in the fee being quoted. It is worth you checking that they are on the Kent Reliance conveyancing panel

As regards the Kent Reliance mortgage, it is unusual that your ex-wife’s name remains on the mortgage but not on the title. It is conceivable that this is an oversight on the part of your conveyancers to ensure that her name was removed or even an administrative error on the part of Kent Reliance in failing to update their data. In any event, it should cause difficulty providing her name no longer appears on the Land Registry title and you have a court order ordering that the property is transferred to you.