HSBC sets date for conveyancing panel

I agree. It is a marriage of convenience which endorses the CQS scheme created by the Law Society blackmailing those of us not in the scheme to join. I don't see any comment by the Law Society on behaviour of HSBC on their own money-laundering regulations. How does the CQS reduce Fraud - the vaunted reason for introducing it? How much fraud is there at the hands of solicitors acting in residential transactions and how much have Lenders suffered financially? and so much more.

As a CQS member firm who also happens to be a sole practitioner based in the south east, the fact that HSBC will only instruct my firm when the mortgage advance is no more than £150k amounts, in effect, to an exclusion from the panel.

I do not see this as a failure of HSBC (we are probably by now all in agreement that banks can do what they want, whether it's legal or not) but a failure of the Law Society and the CQS to represent my interests with sufficient vigour and to be agile enough to negotiate a fairer compromise. I myself am not sure what can be done to get HSBC to act more reasonably towards the likes of my firm, but then it's not my job to spend my days trying to solve a problem that should be dealt with by my professional body on my behalf.

Since becoming a CQS member all that has happened is that I have (effectively) been booted off the HSBC panel. My profits have not rocketed. In my experience clients have no awareness of the scheme or its aims. And my PII premium has not fallen one penny.

My question to the Law Society is this - what reason is there for renewing my CQS membership next year?

I'm another sole practitioner, and have been in very successful practice for over 20 years, offering what I have no shame in saying has been an extremely good and professional service to my clients. I have never advertised or `marketed’ my practice, and have always (even now) had more good quality work than I could want.

I used to enjoy receiving new conveyancing instructions, not just because of the income they generated but because it was a pleasant opportunity to renew acquaintance with existing clients or meet new clients referred as members of their family or friends.

However, I now get a sinking feeling when a client rings me to act on their purchase. The first question I now have to ask them is who they’re taking a mortgage with and the odds are that I will then have to try to explain this absurd and Kafka-esque situation once again.

Despite having done nothing wrong and caused no losses to any lenders that I've acted for I have now been unceremoniously booted off the panels of HSBC, HBOS, Santander and Nationwide, all in a matter of months. Between them they probably have about 75% of the mortgage market.

I've tried to carry on using local firms that are still on the panel, but now Santander have told them they can't act if they are nominated by another firm. Instead they decide who to use, in the last case a firm called Gordons. Although I have no particular criticism of them they charged twice as much as the local panel firm I used to use.

My clients have been tremendously understanding and loyal, although completely unable to comprehend the reason for my exclusion from the panels. They have all commented on the bitter irony of financial institutions who have demonstrated profligacy and irresponsibility on a heroic scale telling me that I am too much of a risk to be allowed to act for them.

But even though my clients may be willing to shell out the additional fees charged by the lenders' conveyancers it is a completely miserable exercise attempting to make it work. The amount of additional work (much of it completely unnecessary and of no benefit to anyone) required by lenders' conveyancers is massive, and seems specifically designed to make my job impossible, as no doubt it is.

And having jumped through the myriad hoops and bought lots of useless and expensive title insurance policies required by the lender’s 21 year old `conveyancing executive’’ who has absolutely no knowledge of local conditions I then have to deal with the nightmare of trying to ensure that the lender’s conveyancers get their mortgage advance to the seller’s solicitors on the day of completion (needless to say they wouldn’t trust me with it).

I really am at my wit’s end. I don’t want to lose these clients, and they don’t want to use another solicitor, but the situation is completely impossible.

Another aspect that should be worrying the Law Society is the increasingly serious possibility of a conflict of interest. Conveyancing factories are inevitably going to be terrified of losing their panel status with a big lender, so will put the lender’s interests far ahead of those of a client who they’ll probably never hear from again.

In real terms it’s now the individual who’s using the lender’s conveyancer, not the lender who’s using the individual’s solicitor, which is a massive change in emphasis and can’t be good for the individuals.

And for all the pious cant about taking a `pro-active approach’ and `maintaining a regular and constructive dialogue’ with the lenders the Law Society are just re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic and they know it. The CQS scheme is just a bureaucratic system that is completely irrelevant to any experienced and competent professional. It’s the sort of setup that is used by conveyancing factories to enable them to employ unqualified staff to do the work. As with all such schemes it concentrates on how the work is done rather than whether it’s done well or actually adds any value.

But the real reason that it’s a waste of time is that these fraudulent and grossly incompetent lenders aren’t culling panels because of any fear of fraud – they can lose billions perfectly well without needing any help from solicitors. No, it’s part of a long term agenda to take conveyancing in house, probably by creating an ABS and buying a conveyancing factory or two.

Ironically they don’t want to take conveyancing off solicitors because it’s profitable work. They want it because people using conveyancing services are an excellent captive market to be sold the sort of rubbish services that the lenders produce, like PPI insurance or investment bonds paying massive commissions or will and probate services that rob the customer’s estate with huge scale fees.

And in the meantime people who are doing a good and honest job of work for clients that appreciate it are being driven out of business. In financial terms it won’t make much difference to me personally, as only a small part of the practice income is from this sort of work, but there are plenty of perfectly good firms who provide an excellent service and who will be destroyed.

I really hope that this new process works for CQS firms and HSBC and, if it does, that other lenders and PII companies take note and maybe react in a similar and pro active way.

Whatever the outcome of this new working relationship is, it is only a small plug in a dam full of many other holes. Santander are currently removing CQS accredited firms from its panel if it decides that they are not carrying out enough transactions for it in this severely depressed market and Birmingham Midshires are, in some cases, offering lower loan rates to borrowers who instruct its nominated solicitors.

Despite my 25 years of conveyancing ‘at the coal face’ I haven’t acted for a buyer or seller for a few years and I count my blessings. My sympathies are with all conveyancers who act professionally and efficiently, day in and day out, yet turn up to work on a daily basis not knowing if the lender they acted for yesterday will allow them to act today. This worsening situation is farcical not just for conveyancers but also the home buying and selling public.

A solution, accepted by all major lenders that works for all parties must be found sooner rather than later otherwise the legal profession and the lending industry will be looked upon with disdain by the general public.

Members of the Bold Legal Group are uniting in their efforts to try to find a way to resolve matters. If you want to follow what we are doing and want to get involved in our efforts email me accordingly: rh@boldlegal.co.uk

Whatever action is taken many conveyancers will have to Carry on Conveyancing. Now there is a good title for a farcical comedy film!

Now that HSBC has been found guilty abroad, should we be wary of any money emanating from them and should be now be reporting to SOCA every transaction where HSBC is involved?

Pro Bono (above) has said it all, and he saved me the trouble of writing on the issue. I'm also livid at the audacity of the financial institutions who caused the financial debacle in the first place and then have the bare faced cheek to tell us we are not doing enough business to justify staying on their conveyancing panels.

Kevin (also above) has it right, and conflict is something I have shouted about for years. If we acted for a party who was buying, say a motor car and he wanted us to also act for the finance house lending him the money to buy it, we would rightly say that there was a conflict of interest. The same rule must surely apply to conveyancing.

It's about time we got together with a proper voice and said we call the shots not the lenders, if only conveyancers would refuse to do conveyancing business for just a month, it would hit the lenders where it hurts them most - in their grubby pockets.