I reply to Peter Browne’s letter asking us not to follow the crowd and in particular resistance to paying referral fees (see [2009] Gazette, 29 January, 9). As owners of an estate agency, we are well aware that most estate agents successfully try to persuade buyers and sellers to use a conveyancer of their choice. Buyers of property feel (and often rightly so) that the estate agent will be more ‘on their side’ in the transaction if they are using the estate agency’s services. Some estate agents are required to refer work only to a particular conveyancing organisation.

Our agency receives letters, phone calls and visits from conveyancers offering to pay referral fees. If conveyancing solicitors do not pay referral fees, they would almost immediately lose at least 80% of the market to licensed conveyancers who would then have the financial muscle to take over most of the rest of the market. The market has changed substantially in the last few years. We must move with the times.

Douglas Narayan, Ferns, Clapham, London