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What TLS in their naiveté don't realise is that by introducing the absurd CQS they have played right into the hands of the lenders.

Competent conveyancing solicitors don't need CQS, any more than a surgeon needs an instruction manual next to his operating table. The only people it benefits are those who don't really understand what they're doing and have to follow a flow chart, mainly those muppets who work in conveyancing factories and frustrate the hell out of those of us who do know what we're doing.

But by introducing CQS TLS have given the entirely false impression that those firms who are willing to line TLS's pockets to get their little badge are somehow better than those of us who are true professionals and don't need a little badge to prove it.

What TLS have failed to realise is that it is the long term intention of mortgage lenders to take conveyancing in house so far as possible, not because it's particularly profitable, but because of all the wonderful cross-selling opportunities it provides.

They can't do it at the moment, as it's far too fragmented an industry. However, what they are stealthily doing - and now greatly aided by CQS - is to drive conveyancing into large conveyancing factories and away from small, independent firms. These factories will inevitably grow larger and larger until they are of a size to be bought by one of the big lenders and turned into their conveyancing arm. At which point TLS will throw up their hands in horror, saying they never saw it coming.

As an SP I initially struggled to carry on after being unceremoniously booted off the panels by trying to operate with one of the lender's panel firms. However, not only did having to pay them remove any profit in the job it was a complete nightmare just in the amount of time it took to satisfy their every pernickety requirement. 9 time out of 10 I was having to dance to the tune of some 20 year old paralegal who had absolutely no knowledge of property law at all.

Eventually I reluctantly made the decision to abandon work where a mortgage is involved, and it's been tremendously liberating, to the extent that conveyancing has actually become quite enjoyable again.

Yes, the volume is of course down, but most of that volume was hard work for little reward even when I'd been on the panel, and I'm not at all sorry to see it go.

I'm heading towards retirement, so it doesn't matter to me that much now anyway. But I do find it very depressing that the level of personal, local service that I've prided myself on giving for the past 20 odd years is simply no longer possible because of the removal of firms like mine from lender panels.

In many cases nowadays a client in a small town cannot find a solicitor in the town who's on the relevant lender panel, and is therefore forced to use a remote firm who have no interest whatever in them as an individual, knowing that they will almost certainly never hear from them again. I always used to enjoy being asked to deal with purchases for the children (and sometimes even grandchildren) of clients I’d acted for over many years, and it does hurt both of us for me to have to point them to a firm they’ve never heard of.

TLS have cravenly abandoned their pretence to represent a once proud profession, and have effectively admitted with the introduction of CQS that most solicitors are not fit to do conveyancing. It's a complete disgrace, and they should be ashamed of themselves.

But of course they are the same chumps who were dazzled by the idiocy that is Veyo, so it's perhaps hardly surprising.