Santander puts panel review on hold
Santander has agreed to pause the ongoing quarterly review of its conveyancing panel and postpone the next review as talks with the Law Society over the process continue.
The Society contacted the bank earlier this month seeking an urgent meeting to raise concerns over the review. It said the review resulted in the removal of hundreds of solicitors from its panel, even after they had paid over £100 to have their membership reviewed.
Discussions with the Society began recently. In a letter to solicitors, seen by the Gazette and due to be published on the Law Society’s website tomorrow, the Society’s chief executive Desmond Hudson says: ‘Whilst that dialogue continues, the bank has agreed an immediate pause in this review process and the next quarterly review has been postponed.’
Santander’s review includes removing firms that fail to meet its transaction volume requirements – a criterion that Hudson says is a ‘blunt instrument’, particularly when a lender looks only at transactions done for itself rather than all conveyancing done by a firm.
While accepting that ‘true dormancy and unexplained reactivation are potential indicators of fraud’, Hudson says banks should consider an applicant firm’s total activity in the market.
According to the letter, the bank has ‘to a degree’ recognised the limitations of its methodology. ‘In our discussions, it recognised that unusual market conditions make it inappropriate to assume that low levels of activity with one particular lender equate to lower activity across the market,’ says Hudson.
The letter says that if Santander recommences its review, firms appearing to be inactive or dormant will not be removed suddenly. Instead, the bank will take a more ‘collaborative’ approach with firms in identifying their wider conveyancing activity.
Hudson tells solicitors that the regulatory environment established by the Financial Services Authority requires lenders to proactively manage their panels, saying that ‘much as we might prefer it otherwise, banks are under no obligation to maintain solicitors on their conveyancing panels’.
‘However, the Law Society has and will continue to ensure bank mortgage customers can choose to be represented by solicitors – high-quality legal advisers,’ he says.
Hudson adds: ‘Dialogue between Santander and the Society is continuing.’
- Read today's Practice Points explaining the Society’s strategy for securing the future role of solicitors in the residential conveyancing market
Comments
PAUSING BY SANTANDER?
Law Society showing their teeth or Santander bottling it? I think we all know what the eventual outcome will be.
Pausing by Santander
Too little Too Late The Law Society should have tackled this many years ago and now they are trying to push against an avalanche
Separate representation is the only way forward to allow an creditablity for the profession
A pause before the slaughter....
No doubt a brief pause while S. considers it's position. Give it a few months and the cull will continue once the goal post have been shifted again, or perhaps removed completely...
PS has anyone ever tried explaining what a section 106 agreement is to S. and then get them to sign up to one? They really dont have a clue...
No pause at all it seems!
We have just received a call from a mortgage broker this morning (Friday 24th) informing us that Santander have removed our firm from their panel. This was the first that we had heard about it, having not been advised by Santander via their portal/email system or in a good old fashioned fax or letter.
The mortgage broker thought it rather strange that we had been dumped by Santander, as she had place another one of our clients with Santander on Wednesday 22nd.
I telephoned Santander this morning, only to be advised that their computer says that we were dumped by them on 16th July.
When I asked how brokers had been applying for Santander mortgages as recently as yesterday and we had been receiving at least two Santander mortgage offers for our clients per week, the robot with an Essex accent at Santander could only tell me "That ain't right. The system says you ain't right".
We are a three partner, four office firm that has specialised in residential conveyancing for over thirty years, (complete with a meaningless CQS logo) and we complete on average 25 transactions a week (most with mortgages and a fair few being with Sanatnder). I do not consider us to be dormant, inactive or whatever the phrase is.
I telephoned the broker back and relayed the information to her, whereupon she informed me that she would place the client with Nationwide instead.
I will now telephone the eight estate agents who refer work to my firm and their various mortgage brokers and "advise" them to steer clear of Santander, as this will be far easier than messing about with an appeal and/or waiting for the Law Society to grow a pair.
On a different note, does anyone know the process of converting me and my firm into Licensed Conveyancers?
Convert to licensed conveyancer
I don't know myself, but from what I hear on the grapevine, it's easy peasy:-
1) The CLC actually try to help their member firms, so if you call them up they are helpful and guide you through the process.
2) You don't have to fill in a 32 page form (three times in three different versions), and then a supplementary form to be phoned up and patronised by Del Boy the Broker to tell you rubbish about the "market being tight" and trying to tell you what you can and can not practice for the purposes of getting Prof Indemnity Insurance, which they then overcharge you for anyway. Licensed Conveyancers have a pool scheme which charges a fixed percentage of fee income.
3) So far as I know (and someone can correct me if I'm wrong), if your staff accidentally makes a mistake on a completion statement and overdraws client account by your £30 telegraphic transfer fee (which you reimburse within a month), you are not going to have to spend six months worrying about when the intervention squad will be coming to bankrupt you and take your livelihood away.
CLC
good suggestion DomCoop
the only problem is that as far as I know CLC will NOT take on liability for actions taken when a solicitor so you basically have to buy run off cover for the solicitors practice and then reopen the next day as CLC regulated.
I was CLC regulated for a few years back in the day. they are harsh but fair and a damn sight better than TLS. any conveyancing only firm would be crazy not to at least look at changing over.
they already regulate probate activities so a non-contentious firm could do very well with them.
CLC
Gary
CLC have a website conveyancer.org.uk which you can get a lot of info from. I think they will also send out a pack if you use the right button on the site.
definitely worth a look.
best of luck.
Lender panels
Why is the Law Society (and every other interested party) pussyfooting around the lending institutions over lender 'panels'?
The answer is simple, and has been repeated ad nauseum.
Acting for the borrower and the lender is a conflict of interest - plain and simple. So conveyancers, please stop doing it and force the lenders to instruct their in-house conveyancers or their own conveyancers, then our clients can instruct us. More work for everyone, and advise clients as I do, that the lender should pay their own conveyancer and not expect the borrower to do so.
Although....
I have always seen sep rep as the answer. However, I read the link in the story to the article in Practice Point
Look at the point on licensed conveyancers. I am not converted but slightly less enthusiastic about sep rep. Unless ALL conveyancers, not just solicitors, agree to sep rep it might not work seems to be their argument. Surely there must be a way around it
Way too little and way too
Way too little and way too late by our pathetic and out of touch Law Society. What about firms already removed????
The simple fact remains that our so called representative body is nothing but an "old boys" club for cronies on the various committees who have no interest in actually doing anything for small High Street firms. I for one, and just about every solicitor I speak to are totally sick of the way we are treated by the Law Society. We could ALL see what was going to happen when they forced CQS on us against our will. Their own scheme is designed to put firms out of business!!!
Law Society...........................TOTAL DISGRACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Whatever you think of the Law
Whatever you think of the Law Society they are our only hope. At least the banks are talking to them. I don't doubt you speak to many solicitors who are sick of them, but i speak to many who don't have a bad word to say about them. Expect they are all CQS though. They do get certain perks. My firm got put back on the panel when we appealed and we are not CQS. worth a shot. Lots of firms are getting back on I am told.
Separate representation
One of the Society's arguments against separate representation is that licensed conveyancers might not sign up to the idea, which would tilt the playing in their favour. The answer is surely to get Parliament to legislate in favour of separate representation, so that all practitioners are bound by the prohibition against acting for both lender and borrower.
One thing which is curious is that so much time is being spent on the role of solicitors/conveyancers in mortgage fraud. Where are the figures demonstrating the level of solicitors'/conveyancers' involvement in mortgage fraud? The Solicitors Compensation Fund must know kow much it has paid out in respet of such matters and qualifying insurers must also be able to collate some relevant figures. Why do we seem to hear very little from lenders about what they are doing in respect of dodgy valuers and dodgy mortgage brokers?
Good Point
Why do solicitors always get blamed for mortgage fraud. Simple...we are the only ones in the process wo are insured and can be sued. However the truth is that brokers arranging questionable mortgages and the lenders signing the applications off are the real people to blame. No matter how many Panorama or Dispatches programmes provide evidence over and over again, no body really cares as long as Solicitors have insurance and their Law society sits back and allows the profession to be dragged through the mud.
While accepting that ‘true
While accepting that ‘true dormancy and unexplained reactivation are potential indicators of fraud’
Really? And here's me thinking that they are indicators of fewer clients having santander mortgages at any particular time than had them at any other particular time, in an economic climate when the housing market has virtually slowed to a stop.
Law society
The Law Society are praising this as a victory...Hello!!!! Wake up and get real. Santander have done this every year for the last 4 years. They remove solicitors, then get bad press, put a few back, then when everything dies down they do the same thing again.
It's our own fault for not doing anything when the first few small practices were removed, thinking the larger firms (2-4 partners) would not be affected, look what has happened now. Shame on us for walking on our knees and following the big banks. I used to fear for the future of our profession but not anymore, as it is already half way in the grave.
separate representation
Welcome to the solution - Me at 17.37.
We are meeting with 2 of our local MPs this Friday. We have a petition which you can see below and sign and share!. We have had a front page story and a Santander untruthful spoiler response saying we hadn't appealed when we had - and had their final answer rejection.
'Separate representation' for Santander is simple- they choose who deals with the mortgage and the borrower pays. Separate Misrepresentation !
It is not a small firm campaign, it is a high street, small town campaign and we are part of our local business community. Our clients, 'the public' will get the message if you encourage them and it is the public who will push the politicians.
http://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/big-banks-bad-for-local-business
http://www.thisiscornwall.co.uk/Banks-policy-harm-traders/story-16727971-detail/story.html
http://smeambassador.wordpress.com/2012/08/21/wanted-100-local-law-firms-to-join-our-campaign-for-separate-representation/
Note - to view these links you will have to cut and paste them to your browser.
Blame
It's simply not correct that solicitors get sued because they are the only ones in the process who are insured. Valuers are required by the RICS to carry insurance and one rogue valuer can cause immense damage: see, for example, the mess created by Ian McGarry. It tends to be mortgage brokers who disappear into the ether, with no insurance cover in respect of claims against them.
My point is that the Law Society seems to be taking at face value the assertion (implicit in the lenders' stance) that solicitors are the ones primarily to blame for mortgage fraud. They should be (i) challenging that assertion, (ii) questioning the rationale behind reducing the number of solicitors carrying out conveyancing work for lenders and (iii) pointing out that is in neither the borrower's nor lender's interests for a purchase to be dealt with by a firm located a long distance from either the borrower or the property which is the subject of the transaction.
Lender panels, gone with the wind?
Good news that Santander have paused its ongoing quarterly review. Good news that some firms who have appealed are now back on the panel. The message is simple, keep trying.
This situation is like plugging new holes that keep appearing in a decrepit dam, lender one - plug it, lender two - plug it, lender three - plug it, Santander? – your guess is as good as mine. This situation cannot continue forever, we need a new dam. CQS, Sep Rep or an unknown alternative could be the new dam that is needed, time will tell.
I had a meeting today with Paul Bassett. Paul is calling for Parliament to legislate in favour of compulsory Sep Rep (solicitors and licensed conveyancers) and I look forward to hearing how his meeting with two local MPs goes this Friday. Paul is hoping that the MPs see the bigger picture; if high street law firms disappear, that will adversely affect an already beleaguered high street and as we know Mary Portas, at the request of David Cameron, is helping the Government try to save Britain’s high streets.
The Bold Legal Group (BLG) has a number of licensed conveyancers who are members and in a recent BLG survey that I carried out, the majority of them feel that Sep Rep is the only way forward. Therefore, the comment “would the regulatory body of licensed conveyancers call for compulsory Sep Rep? We think not” could be wide of the mark. A simple solution, ask the question, I will.
As I have said before, I believe that all firms should send someone to the Law Society events CQS Developments and the Future (being held in September) and I also believe that firms should take up the recent Law Society offer; “we propose to arrange a series of meetings across the country to explain the decisions the Society has taken and its current plans, to debate separate representation but, most of all, to seek the views of our members. If you would like to attend such a meeting please email panel.events@lawsociety.org.uk indicating the most convenient town or city for you to participate in a meeting. Once we have a sense of numbers we can, if interest justifies it, arrange locations and dates for the meetings.” If you don’t go, you won’t know.
Another comment was made that I have to question, “the days of lenders allowing any firm of solicitors to act for them is over.” That might not be quite as clear cut as it seems; rather ironically, Tesco seems to be taking an approach that is pretty close to having an open panel.
It anyone wants to know how to apply to get on the Tesco panel or would like a copy of the BLG Sep Rep survey or would just like to get it off their chests, please email me accordingly, rh@boldlegal.co.uk.
The solution? To misquote Mr Gable, “frankly my dears, I think we need a new dam!”
law society andlender panels
Steve Bennett, you are 100% RIGHT!!
Lets see how many others agree. If YOU do please confirm. I just don't know how many will actually read this article and the comments, but cannot imagine that anyone who does could possibly disagree. Please say so if you do disagree.
Do solicitors need a proper 'Union' - YES WE DO!!
"Keynote Seminar"
This might be of interest:
http://www.westminsterforumprojects.co.uk/forums/agenda/conveyancing-agenda.pdf
I note that, in the 11.35 am to 12.25 pm session, no one is appearing on behalf of valuers, mortgage brokers or the Land Registry. Might I suggest that the Society could usefully unite with the RICS and the Land Registry and spend some money on a report which properly investigates mortgage fraud? Until the mechanisms of (and participants in) mortgage fraud are fully understood, no one can sensibly try to develop an effective solution to the problem.
Santander are the latest bully
The Banks are unashamedly dictating how legal work is to be carried out. More than that they are nit far from being in a position to threaten even individuals working in the legal profession. I am a consultant solicitor and former partner who has been with the same practice since 1979. Throughout that tie time I have acted many times for Santander and its predecessors. I have just been asked to sign a form authorising Santander to do a credit reference check on me! So now they want to intrude on my personal affairs and make checks on my credit status whenevr it suits them. It so happens there should be nothing to disturb them when they apply, but how will they use their powers when they find a solicitor or conveyancer with a lousy credit file? And why should they seek the right to snoop on the credit file of any paid employee in a legal practice?
WHAT ABOUT THE ISSUE OF
WHAT ABOUT THE ISSUE OF COMPULSORY SEPARATE REPRESENTATION WHICH APPEARS TO HAVE BEEN IGNORED - YET AGAIN!!. THIS IS WHAT MANY IN THE PROFESSION ARE CALLING FOR TO END THE PRESENT BULLYING NONSENSE - INCLUDING LICENSED CONVEYANCERS WHO ARE IN THE SAME BOAT AS SOLICITORS.
ABOUT THE ISUUE
WELL DUDLEY, RULES ARE OUT AND OFR IS IN AND IT IS THE SRA WHO DECIDE. THEY DO NOT DIRECT WHAT IS A CONFLICT BUT LEAVE IT FOR YOU TO DECIDE. AFTER LOBBYING SRA INCLUDED AN IB THAT RECOGNISES JOINT REP IN LIMITED SITUATIONS. SO IF YOU DECIDE THERE IS TOO MUCH OF A CONFLICT YOU SHOULD NOT ACT. THE MARKET MAY MOVE AGAINST YOU IGNORING CONFLICT AS WE HAVE LONG UNDERSTOOD IT. IT WILL THEN BE FOR PARLIAMENT, REGULATORS, CLAIMS FARMERS OR INSURERS TO WISE UP AND CHIP IN- BUT IN THE MEANTIME MARKETS SEE LITTLE CONSUMER DETRIMENT OR COST TO THEM IN DEREGULATING.
Personally I think they are wrong as property is mispriced and over overvalued bringing us back to the core problem. Leaving aside systemic and occasional fraud there is non virtuous money lending - crocodiles fed by deal brokers and above all false valuations which make the deposit scams and back to back deals a side show .
Santander
Can the Law Society also deal with the bullies at Santander who want to carry out credit reference checks on all the solicitors and licensed conveyancers and legal executives emplyed by panel firms (ie not just the partners/directors). A complete snoopers paradise. I dread to think what will happen to a firm which just happens to be employing someone with a lousy credit file.Not that it is any business of an employer to know any more than it is any business of Santander to know - but they have decided to make it their business. Is there no limit to the shameless bullying that goes with modern banking?
Credit checks
If a bank asks to be allowed to do a credit check on your staff, ask the lender if you can do one it and its staff. Also ask the bank (as a prospective client) if it has ever been involved in moneylaundering. That will be the end of your relationship with the bank, but think of the satisfaction you will get merely from posing the questions. If separate representation comes into effect, the fact that you have annoyed the bank won't matter anyway.
On a serious note, if Santander are indeed asking to carry out credit checks of this kind, the Gazette needs to write that up as a proper news story in itself.
credit checks
other banks are doing this as well.
I used to do conveyancing and am nominally on strength for our conveyancing team for supervision and file review purposes.
on recent dealings with another bank for a change of office address the same thing came up.
I refused and so will no longer be signing COT's for that bank.
they also wanted my home address NI number etc.
LawSoc need to stop this. lenders are entitled to any professional information they need but they are not entitled to butt into my private life.
best to all.
Credit checks and personal info
I think there could be data protection implications to this. They are allowed to seek whatever information they want from a business, and by definition that includes the partners and directors.
But, taking the personal information from individual employees amounts to processing personal data. It can only be fairly and lawfully processed for specific purposes in accordance with Data Protection purposes.
Given that the company / firm / partnership is both insured and liable for the acts of employees, it seems to me unlikely that there can be any justification for such processing.
I don't do Santander mortgage work, but if I did, I would be making a complaint to the Information Commissioner.
agree
Dom
i agree on the interpretation but the commercial reality is that many firms will simply put up with this massive intrusion and god help the employee who stands up on their and makes a complaint. I would be surprised if they survived!
we need TLS or SRA to step in at a high level. our client's details are confidential
how on earth did we get to the position where employee's own personal details are not?
best to all.
Bank requirements...
It is only a matter of time before they ask for a stool sample.
Justification
The only possible justification for asking for employees' details is to try to identify employees who might try to perpetrate a fraud on the lender during a conveyancing transaction being handled by the firm (for example, by stealing the mortgage advance from the firm's account). That cannot possibly be an adequate justification, especially in circumstances where the minimum terms of insurance cover not just the firm's principals but also the firm's staff. Perhaps the Society would like to comment on whether it is aware of this practice and what it intends to do to stop it.
The weekend approaches and I
The weekend approaches and I drift into Byron mode dreaming of sailing across the Hellenic seas drinking fine wine when reality suddenly kicks in and I must check if I am up to date with my SRA compliance : records of First Tier Complaints, compulsory diversity surveys, supply of turnover figures and of course fully understanding why I could be sent to prison personally if I fail to carry out my duties as COLPA or COFA.
Talking of the SRA and the LSB it has been mentioned to me that the LSB/SRA has suggested in a discussion paper that in the future the titles "solicitor" or "barrister" might be abolished.I believe also that as a result of legislation solicitors are no longer officers of the court.
A level playing field is gradually being created so that one day lawyers will have the same standing with the public as bankers. I would not insult double glazing salesmen.
The Law Society is no longer a regulator. It has been liberated by the politicians to mimic the trade unions and look robustly after the interests of its members. If the LS is to survive it must act in a more sophisticated manner and retake the moral high ground
Trade Union
Unfortunately, the Society seems to have no idea how to act as a trade union. Even if it did, a large part of its role would consist in protecting its members from the excesses of the SRA - an organisation which was, of course, created by the Society in the first place.
It's worse. The SRA remains
It's worse. The SRA remains part of the Law Society: it is simply the Law Society's independent regulatory arm, licensed by the Legal Services Board (a state-controlled body and the industry's super-regulator) to act as the frontline regulator for the profession.
Everything done by the SRA is on behalf of the Law Society and thus, indirectly, on behalf of the profession.
On the plus side, this means that - for the time being - the SRA remains within the hands of the profession, whatever the composition of its Board might be from time-to-time.
On the negative side, the in-crowd who operate the representative and regulatory functions are not our friends. I'm afraid there is a sector within our profession who do not wish the rest of us well and do not have the interests of the public at heart. They have no interest in the maintenance of a profession. They are political animals and will follow the Zeitgeist and whatever is the transient social and political agenda.
They are paid well for it, and as such, they are immune to what in other jurisdictions - especially the United States - would be considered democratic pressures from individual member-practitioners and firms. We are - I'll borrow Professor Flood's terminology - "backwoodsmen". What that means , and what Professor Flood means, is that we are not 'with it', as they said in the 60s. We are not with the Zeitgeist. It is not that we are wrong as there is nothing natural or inevitable about what is going on. Rather, this is all down to legislative action and the capturing by vested interests of the professions. The problem is, those in heightened positions within the profession are either too greedy or too dimwitted to understand this, and the politicians of course just do not care.
There are subtle arguments. Most of us on here know how the law used to be a professional community and what the checks and balances were on practitioner behaviour. The sense of a culture of behaviour and a shared understanding is long gone now. I don't like what is being put in its place and I think many innocent people will suffer.
It not just about us! The banks policy will harm the High Street
This is about consumer choice and the effect it will have on the High Street if law firms are squeezed out. It's the small firms today, bigger firms tomorrow!
We are not looking to the Law Society for seprep, or the CML- it is against their stated agenda- we are going straight to Parliament and the public.
We have had very constructive meetings today with two local MPs who agree that this is an issue that affects the growth of the High Street and both have said they are taking the matter further.
We have a successful lobbyist willing to help us all the way We have the backing of our local business community and we are gathering a lot of interest and support on social media. We invite you to do the same. We have to take a stand!
We have had some flack saying the public will not support sep rep , but there is growing evidence they do. Everyone gets that this is a step too far by the banks. Just get out there and see what your clients think.
Have a look at the blog.
http://smeambassador.wordpress.com/2012/08/24/guest-post-9-paul-bassett-a-p-bassett-solicitors-separate-representation/
Your thinking is on the right
Your thinking is on the right lines and you are correct about the impotence of the Law Society, but I suspect appeals to MPs will not help.
We are in the right - but the Zeitgeist is against us. That's often case. The people who are labelled the bad guys often turn out later on to have been the good guys all along and vice versa - and I think this is one of those cases.
The profession is being slandered, libelled and demonised, at turns overtly and subtly, by some very clever but shifty people across business, politics and academia. They have no care for the public interest. I think somewhere down the line we are going to be proved right, and the same sort of people who dismiss our arguments now will be the first to call for some useless measures later to put right the mess their predecessors needn't have made in the first place.
But I've signed your petition, and being a Modern Man, I've also added your firm as a Like on Facebook. I'm pleased to support you, for what it's worth, and I wish you well.
Sep-rep
If the MPs are going to make any headway, they need to armed with arguments not just about consumer choice, but about fraud and competence. Lenders are saying that restricting choice is what they have told to do by the FSA to minimise fraud, so the MPs need to have answers to that argument. They will also need to explain why they are in favour of sep-rep when the profession's own representative body (the Law Society) is against it.
It's interesting that the Law Society of Scotland has set up a working party to look at sep-rep, while the Law Society of England and Wales seems to dismiss the idea of sep-rep out of hand.
Mortgage fraud?
Am I being naive? Mortgage fraud? Doesn't this start with the mortgage application to a lender? If the lender checks this out properly and issues a mortgage offer, and the conveyancers verify the client's identity ( as best they can realistically - we don't do fingerprints or DNA or retina scans yet!) how does it happen?
Dodgy lawyer? - very few I imagine; dodgy broker? - I can't really comment; careless lender? - has to be surely?
I fail to see how separate representation will get round this anyway, although I think I agree that it should be implemented. However, I have said before, the lender's lawyer should do its own work at the lender's expense and not ask for a guarantee/indemnity/certificate of title etc from the borrower's lawyer.
Mortgage fraud
See http://www.cml.org.uk/cml/policy/issues/3658.
So far as solicitors are concerned there are typically three kinds of mortgage fraud: fraud they facilitate without realising it (which usually results in a breach of contract/negligence claim against them); fraud they knowingly facilitate (for example, by being in league with a deceitful borrower and deceitful valuer) and fraud in the form of running off with the mortgage advance.
If the lender's claim against the solicitor is based on negligence/breach of contract, the solicitor may be able to run a defence of contributory negligence against the lender (Nationwide v Archdeacons being the most extreme example - lender held 90% contributorily negligent for failing to check on inconsistencies in the borrower's application form); but if the lender's claim against the solicitor is based on the tort of deceit, the solicitor cannot run a defence of contributory negligence and there will be no question of any "SAAMCo cap" coming into play.
Separate representation should help, not least because a solicitor acting for both lender and borrower may be in a difficult position if he finds out matters which could be of interest to the lender (see, for example, Mortgage Express v Bowerman). Of course, separate representation will not help if a solicitor simply absconds with the mortgage advance, but that is a fairly rare occurrence.
Santander deny putting panel review in hold
Elsewhere, (The Solicitors Journal), it is reported that Santander have denied putting the panel review on hold. Please can we have clarity
I like what Tom Rogers
I like what Tom Rogers says
Although I do not share his view that the professional community has yet been destroyed or beyond repair
Jurisprudence and the drivers of it can be dominated by the Law Society if the profession so chooses
The profession can be more assertive and use ethical arguments effectively in the future to its advantage.
Operating from an ethical platform can provide an effective means to change the future direction of the profession
We were never particularly liked in the past but we were well respected
It must be the positive effects of my holiday but I am not quite ready to throw in the towel on the profession
More fool you-there is no
More fool you-there is no profession left.
Confusion
Compare and contrast:
http://www.lawsociety.org.uk/newsandevents/news/view=newsarticle.law?NEWSID=448018
http://www.solicitorsjournal.com/node/13891
Presumably, Mr Hudson can produce an attendance note, confirming the account of events set out in the fifth paragraph of his "Dear Colleagues" letter...
This kind of thing does not encourage a great deal of confidence in the Law Society. Clearly, various (if not all) mortgage lenders are going to review and cut their panels. The Society needs to have a more sophisticated plan for dealing with this. At the moment, its approach is the ad hoc one of talking to the latest lender to cut its panel, only then to be contradicted by that lender about the outcome of those negotiations.
Separate Representation
Just suppose:
-Your firm is on the panel of a lender, and depends on panel membership for a fair slice of its business.
-The lender operates a harsh or illogical panel membership policy and is difficult to talk to.
-You spot something fishy on the paperwork and suspect your lay client has been sold an inappropriate financial product. The lender's local manager is covering his tracks and looking for someone to blame for the trouble.
Will you be able to represent the interests of your lay client, and what do you think will happen to you if you do?
Refer the client
You point out to the client that he may have been missold a financial product and suggest that, because of your commercial relationship with the entity which sold him that product, he take advice from another firm on the potential misselling claim. Having said that, I doubt that a major lender's mortgage/conveyancing department would even be aware (or care) that your firm was acting against it on a mis-selling claim.
Panel Fee.
Has anyone had their money back from Santander yet?