I refer to the letter of Mark Bailey, managing director of Countrywide Property Lawyers (see [2004] Gazette, 5 August, 14).


My experience with local estate agents is that they have a very good rapport with local solicitors, but none of them has a good word to say about factory conveyancers. This includes the corporate estate agents who are obliged to fulfil their quotas and meet their targets by referring so many conveyancing transactions a week to those organisations.



Only recently having been instructed on a purchase, a local estate agent telephoned me to apologise for the fact that the seller had instructed a factory conveyancer.



Mr Bailey can put a gloss on things as much as he likes, but in my view you cannot beat good working relationships between local estate agents and local lawyers.



Henry Preston, Preston Goldburn, Falmouth, Cornwall