There is a clear requirement that solicitors, when acting on sale transactions, should always complete part II enquiries (see page 230 of the Law Society's Conveyancing Handbook, 12th edition).

Yet a significant proportion of the profession clearly either does not agree with this requirement or is ignorant of it and continues to refuse to answer the questions.


To comply with the requirement may well be considered to be time consuming, and - however careful the solicitor is - to carry a degree of risk.


However, the converse of this is that it would also appear that a significant proportion of the profession - when acting for buyers - is willing to accept incomplete property information forms, contrary to the requirements as set out in the handbook, without reporting the lack of proper replies to the part II enquiries to mortgage lenders.


This would appear also to be in breach of Council of Mortgage Lenders requirements, and my firm's experience is that when reported to mortgage lenders, the mortgage lender in the majority of cases declines to lend.


Surely, therefore, when the next downturn in the property market results in negative equity and mortgage default, mortgage lenders will have been presented with an ideal opportunity to lodge claims against solicitors' firms for failing to comply with the council's requirements and conveyancing 'best practice'.


In the circumstances, it would appear that either the Law Society needs to amend the requirements of part II enquiries as laid down in the handbook, or it should take the opportunity strongly to warn solicitors failing to follow these requirements of the potential negligence claims that they are risking.


GD Carr, Stuckey Carr & Co, Pulborough, West Sussex