I have recently been told in passing by a long-standing client that the sale of her home completed some months ago. We have held her title deeds for many years and had no knowledge of the sale. Her estate agents had advised her that it would be easier for her to use 'their solicitors', namely a conveyancing 'sausage factory' loosely described as a firm of solicitors.

The 'solicitors' derived title from the official copies without reference to our client's deeds and they are at liberty to do so. In choosing not to request the deeds and other documents possibly relevant to the sale from us, they appear to have deliberately attempted to prevent us from being able to provide our client with a competitive quotation. They have, as a result, effectively stolen work from us and left us with a set of redundant title deeds and documents.


Is it not frustrating when your firm works hard to ensure that clients are happy, and even when you know they are satisfied, their business is still lost through the underhand actions of others. How many decent law firms are unwittingly haemorrhaging clients this way? Some fellow members of the Law Society who run such 'sausage factory' operations and encourage such behaviour seem happy to destroy their fellow members' livelihoods.


Jonathan Mason, Young & Pearce, Nottingham