Cheque this outI have recently been engaged in the purchase of a residential property where the 'standard' special conditions annexed to the vendors' solicitors' contract allowed payment by 'a cheque drawn on account of the buyers' solicitor unless the solicitor is a sole practitioner'.

I act as a consultant to a firm which is a sole practitioner practice.

I have never seen this sort of condition attached to a contract.

I indicated to my opposite number that I found it offensive, to put it mildly.It was readily withdrawn, and an acknowledgement given that perhaps it ought not to have been there and was obviously a hangover from possible earlier local law society standard conditions.

I wonder whether anyone else has ever encountered a situation where a sole practitioner solicitor's client account cheque has been unacceptable, and whether the Law Society has a view about this in terms of professional practice and general ethics.

Sole practitioners have a hard enough time of it in the property market.

For their client account cheques not to be accepted by other solicitors, whose minimum professional indemnity insurance is the same, seems to be plainly wrong.

M Coakley, Julian McEvoy & Co, Guildford