The Legal Services Consumer Panel has called for the Solicitors Regulation Authority to scrap the conduct provisions that prevent a solicitor from acting for both seller and purchaser, and for both lender and borrower in a conveyancing transaction.

Responding to the SRA’s current consultation on its new handbook, which seeks views on the current provisions, the consumer panel said they should be removed, and consumers should instead be protected by the general conflict rule.

The panel, which was set up by the Legal Services Board to advise it on the interests of consumers, said there should be safeguards in place to ensure that lawyers understand their responsibilities when acting for both sides, and that they deliver informed consumer choice.

However, it noted that allowing one solicitor to act for both sides could ‘minimise inconvenience caused by exchanges of correspondence and reduce avoidable cost’.

In its consultation response, the panel pointed out that licensed conveyancers had ‘long been permitted to act for both sides, apparently without any problems’.

Under the SRA’s favoured approach, solicitors would still not be permitted to act for both parties if they identify a substantive client conflict of interest. However, removing the detailed provisions is intended to give solicitors more flexibility to act for both sides where there is no conflict. Client consent would be required before the solicitor can act for both sides.

The consumer panel said any change to the rules should be based on evidence. It called on the SRA to conduct research into whether the rule change would affect public confidence. It said the SRA should also ascertain how many sales have fallen through as a result of issues discovered by the conveyancer, as this could be an indicator of how frequently conflicts occur.

The consumer panel’s view broadly followed that expressed by the National Consumer Council in 2007 when the SRA issued a previous consultation on the issue.