Professional & Institutional Services
Was this lender's requirement normal for the market at the time — or was it an outlier?
Lexsure reconstructs lender requirements and the lender-market position as they stood on the date of a historic conveyancing transaction — evidence for litigation, professional-negligence investigation, PI claims handling, and multi-claim enquiries.
For solicitors · PI insurers · legal auditors · litigation funders · independent experts
01
Testing an allegation
Claimant firms assessing whether historic lender requirements support further investigation before costs are committed.
02
Defending one
Defendant firms and insurers testing whether an alleged failure was actually unusual given lender requirements across the market at the time.
03
Assessing exposure
Insurers, funders and auditors evaluating liability and historic exposure, including multi-claim enquiries across related files.
The same evidence serves both sides. Lexsure reports document historical market facts. They do not adopt a claimant or defendant position — a factual product carries no side.
Intelligence → Expert opinion
Two levels of service. Two different questions.
These are not larger versions of the same report. One performs analysis, the other independent expert opinion, and each is priced as a fixed professional fee. Retrieval of the historical records themselves is handled on the Lender Archive.
£1,500 + VAT · first topic
Market Intelligence Report
“How exposed was the property to the wider mortgage market at the relevant time, and how was that market developing?”
A bespoke analytical report: market context modelling on the transaction date, benchmarking of the lender's relative market position, substantive change analysis of the lender's own requirements over time, and trend analysis across the longitudinal dataset. No conclusion on breach or negligence.
Where a Market Context Report for the same lender, date and topic has already been purchased on the Lender Archive, its fee is credited in full against this instruction if commissioned within 30 days.
What's in the report£3,000 + VAT · minimum
CPR Part 35 Expert Instruction
“What is the independent expert's opinion when the historical evidence is considered alongside the actual conveyancing file?”
An independent, court-facing opinion from a named expert with an overriding duty to the court, prepared in accordance with CPR Part 35, Practice Direction 35, and the Guidance for the Instruction of Experts in Civil Claims 2014.
Expert instruction termsMany professional instructions begin with the Intelligence Report: before deciding whether expert evidence is required, obtain the historical market intelligence. Courts restrict expert evidence to what is reasonably required (CPR 35.1) and permission is needed to rely on it (CPR 35.4) — which is precisely why the pre-action step matters. Where expert opinion is required, the report is not a substitute for it.
The Market Intelligence Report
Not a bigger search. An analysis of the market itself.
Each report is built by a senior analyst from the historic dataset and answers where the lender sat within the market, what proportion of the lender population held comparable requirements, whether the market was moving — and whether the transaction occurred before, during, or after an identifiable shift.
A
Retrospective Market Context Matrix
Reconstructs the relevant lender population for the specific Part 2 topic on the transaction date, as defined in the published methodology statement.
B
Relative Market Position
Benchmarks the selected lender against the wider population, stated as documented fact. “Market outlier” is a predefined methodological classification based solely on prevalence within the observable lender population — applied only where prevalence falls below the threshold specified in Lexsure's published methodology, and carrying no opinion on duty, breach or standard of care.
Report output format
— / — lenders · —% prevalence
Classification: —
The evidence is the prevalence figure. The label is Lexsure's defined taxonomy.
C
Historical Trend Analysis
Uses the longitudinal dataset to demonstrate how requirements changed in the years leading up to the transaction — when movement began, and how quickly adoption spread.
Single-Topic Scope
Each report covers exactly one Part 2 requirement vertical, so scope and fee are fixed before work begins. Illustrative topics:
Fees
Fixed fees, scoped in writing before work begins.
Additional topics on the same historic transaction use a published discount schedule. Where issues interact, Lexsure confirms in writing at engagement whether the instruction comprises one topic or several — no surprise fees.
| Service | First topic | Second topic | Third+ topics | Action |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Market Intelligence Report | £1,500 + VAT | £900 + VAT | £600 + VAT each | Instruct |
| CPR Part 35 Expert Instruction | £3,000 + VAT min. | £1,800 + VATsame-foundation topics† | £1,200 + VAT eachsame-foundation topics† | Instruct |
| Expert hourly rateDisclosures, expert meetings, CPR 35.6 questions, preparation, attendance time | £375 + VAT / hour | |||
| Court attendance retainerCalendar reservation & logistics only — attendance time billed hourly | £600 + VAT fixed · accommodation £200 + VAT / night · travel at cost | |||
Worked example — one transaction, three topics (short lease · gifted deposit · six-month ownership)
Market Intelligence Report (Tier 3) £1,500 + £900 + £600 = £3,000 + VAT
CPR Part 35 Expert Instruction† £3,000 + £1,800 + £1,200 = £6,000 + VAT
All professional fees are quoted exclusive of VAT. † Part 35 discounted topic rates are firm figures and apply where the additional topic materially shares the same factual and analytical foundation, confirmed in writing at engagement; otherwise the topic is quoted as a separate instruction. Follow-on topics concerning the same historic transaction instructed within six months of delivery of the initial report qualify for the published additional-topic schedule; later instructions are scoped and quoted afresh. The £375 Tier 2 fee is credited in full against a Tier 3 instruction for the same lender, transaction date and Part 2 topic commissioned within 30 days of delivery of the Tier 2 report. Where an instruction is cancelled or the underlying claim settles or is discontinued before the report is delivered, charges reflect work performed and capacity reserved to that point, as staged in the engagement terms. Prices for members of the public, inclusive of VAT, are shown on the Lender Archive.
CPR Part 35 · Independent Expert Evidence
You are not buying a conclusion.
Every expert instructed through Lexsure owes an overriding duty to the court under CPR 35.3 — not to the instructing party. Before an instruction is accepted, it is confirmed in writing that the expert's opinion cannot be predetermined, and that the fee is payable whether or not the opinion assists the instructing party's case.
01
Independent File and Historical Market Review
Independent review of the conveyancing file, report on title, and completion records — considered alongside Lexsure's historical lender dataset, maintained since 2007.
02
A named expert, personally responsible
Authored and signed by a named expert with 20+ years of legal and risk experience across practice as solicitors, licensed conveyancers, and risk consultants.
03
Part 35 procedural framework
Prepared in accordance with CPR Part 35, Practice Direction 35, the Guidance for the Instruction of Experts in Civil Claims 2014, any applicable court order, and statement-of-truth requirements.
04
Support through the life of the claim
Where applicable, directed or permitted: answers to CPR 35.6 written questions, expert discussions under CPR 35.12, and oral evidence at trial — billed at the hourly rate.
Instruction fee
£3,000 + VAT minimum
Fixed instruction fee covering file intake, single-topic dataset extraction, formation of the independent opinion, and the court-ready report.
- Hourly rate
- £375 + VAT
- Attendance retainer
- £600 + VAT
- Accommodation
- £200 + VAT / night
Expert evidence is controlled by the court: CPR 35.1 restricts it to what is reasonably required, and permission under CPR 35.4 is needed to rely on it in proceedings. The Intelligence Report can therefore be used at the pre-action or investigative stage before deciding whether independent expert evidence is required; where Part 35 evidence is subsequently appropriate, the timing and scope of the expert instruction can be considered alongside the procedural position and any court directions. Not every instruction progresses through every stage; cancellation and adjournment terms are set out in the engagement documentation.
Method
Built to be challenged.
Every report ships with Lexsure's methodology statement, because we assume the data will be scrutinised by the other side. Benchmarks are drawn against the active, observable lender population on the relevant date — drawn from our 194-lender historical dataset — with defunct, withdrawn and inactive lenders identified and treated transparently, never silently inflating a denominator. The statement defines how requirement changes are dated, how mergers and renamings are handled, how gaps and later amendments are treated, and the exact denominator behind every percentage we publish.
- Dataset population
- Active, observable lenders per date · 194-lender dataset
- Date methodology
- Effective-dated requirement changes
- Corporate history
- Mergers, renamings & predecessors tracked
- Transparent calculations
- Every percentage states its denominator
- Contemporaneous records
- Captured since 2007 — not rebuilt from today's requirements
Methodology statement — summary
Population. Each report's benchmark population comprises lenders with an observable Part 2 requirement for the relevant topic on the relevant date. Lenders that were inactive, withdrawn from new lending, or without a recorded position on that date are identified and excluded from the benchmark denominator, and the report states the population count used.
Dating. Requirement changes are recorded with effective dates as captured at the time. Where a record gap exists, the report states the nearest recorded positions either side of the transaction date rather than interpolating silently.
Corporate history. Lender identities are tracked through mergers, acquisitions, renamings and brand changes, with predecessor entities mapped so a lender's position is followed through its corporate history.
Amendments. Later Handbook changes and retrospective corrections are recorded as such; historic positions are reported as they stood at the time, not as later amended.
Calculations. Every percentage, prevalence figure and market-position statement identifies its denominator and calculation method. “Market outlier” is a predefined methodological classification based solely on prevalence, applied only where prevalence falls below the threshold set out in the full statement; reports using the label state expressly that it carries no opinion on duty, breach or standard of care.
Why Lexsure
CML
Risk management leadership
Lexsure experts were invited by the Council of Mortgage Lenders — predecessor to UK Finance — to lead a dedicated risk management session on Lender Handbook compliance.
20+ yrs
Senior cross-discipline expertise
Senior assessors with over two decades across the UK property sector — as qualified solicitors, licensed conveyancers, and risk management consultants.
2,000+
Law firms supported
A 15+ year history supporting law firms with risk software, compliance training, and PI insurer risk-reduction verification.
Not sure which level your matter needs? Speak to Lexsure before instructing — we'll help you work out whether the question is data, intelligence, or expert opinion.
Call 020 7692 7020 Request Engagement Pack