The Council of Mortgage Lenders was an industry body representing

mortgage A mortgage loan or simply mortgage (), in civil law (legal system), civil law jurisdictions known also as a hypothec loan, is a loan used either by purchasers of real property to raise funds to buy real estate, or by existing property owners t ...

lenders in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

. Its members consisted of

bank A bank is a financial institution that accepts Deposit account, deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital m ...

building societies A building society is a financial institution owned by its members as a mutual organization, which offers banking institution, banking and related financial services, especially savings and mortgage loan, mortgage lending. They exist in the Unit ...

and specialist lenders and represented 95% of mortgage lending in the UK. In November 2015 it was confirmed that the Council of Mortgage Lenders would be merged with the

British Bankers' Association The British Bankers' Association (BBA) was a trade association for the UK banking and financial services sector. From 1 July 2017, it was merged into UK Finance. It represented members from a wide range of banking and financial services. The as ...

Payments UK Payments UK was a trade association for financial institutions, technology firms and payment processing companies in the United Kingdom. It merged with a number of other British financial organisations in July 2017 to form UK Finance. History O ...

, the UK Cards Association and the Asset Based Finance Association, following a review into financial trade bodies. It became part of the newly established

UK Finance UK Finance is a British trade association for the UK banking and financial services sector that was formed on 1 July 2017. It represents over 300 firms in the UK providing credit, banking, markets and payment-related services. The association fo ...

in July 2017. The CML's ''Lenders' Handbook for England and Wales'' (or "the CML Handbook) was used to direct how

solicitor A solicitor is a lawyer who traditionally deals with most of the legal matters in some jurisdictions. A person must have legally defined qualifications, which vary from one jurisdiction to another, to be described as a solicitor and enabled to p ...

s and

conveyancer In most Commonwealth countries, a conveyancer is a specialist lawyer who specialises in the legal aspects of buying and selling real property, or conveyancing. A conveyancer can also be (but need not be) a solicitor, licensed conveyancer, or ...

s handled their role in arranging mortgages and completing sales of property. For example, the Handbook required solicitors and conveyancers to ensure that they held a signed Mortgage Loan Agreement to the full value of the advance before completion of a sale, and they were to hold the loan on trust for the lender until completion. The CML Handbook is now the UK Finance ''Lenders' Handbook''.UK Finance
UK Finance Mortgage Lenders' Handbook for Conveyancers
accessed on 10 April 2025

References

External links

*UK Finance official website
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Archived version of the CML website
as at 6 June 2017 Mortgage industry of the United Kingdom Housing in the United Kingdom Business organisations based in the United Kingdom Mortgage industry associations {{UK-finance-company-stub