Paul Marsh is quite right, in talking about the Conveyancing Quality Scheme (CQS), when he says ‘it is crucial that good firms of whatever size are able to compete on quality and not just on price with substandard firms’.

We are a Lexcel-accredited firm with 25 partners and we support the CQS. We pride ourselves in using experienced conveyancers and offering clients a one-to-one relationship; this is what clients value.

However, we are being squeezed on price, both by some of the so-called ‘factory’ conveyancers and also by some high street firms. We are in neither camp. We are in what Ed Miliband might call ‘the squeezed middle’.

We are happy to deal with anyone. However, we sometimes find it difficult dealing with those who attempt to cut costs by using inexperienced ‘case handlers’ who adopt a tick-box mentality and whose knee-jerk reaction to a hint of a problem is to reach for an indemnity policy.

Equally, we have trouble dealing with those who do not resource their conveyancing properly, who never seem to return phone calls and who fail to respond in a timely fashion to correspondence. As always, it is the actions of the few that spoil it for the majority of firms who are doing a great job for their clients.

An important element of CQS is how you deal with the other side in a conveyancing transaction. If it is to succeed, CQS needs teeth, and action must be taken against those who pay lip service to its underlying principles.

Richard Atkins , property partner, Taylor Walton, St Albans