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The messages from this judgment are pretty clear -

1. It's not a question of blame, but one of risk allocation.

2. Those firms quite accurately have refused to act further because the risks for them were too high - these were paradigm facts of a situation just waiting to test the courts - but they wanted the business and so have to shoulder its risks.

3. MDR could also have accurately advised their client that there was a danger of fraud, and so not to proceed, or advised their client to seek insurance cover against fraud if there is such cover available [but it's not].

4. The judgment is a decision of public policy that forces our profession to take ownership of the risk of ID fraud.

5. This will affect the fees we charge but more importantly it forces us to agree on some benchmarks that actually work in fact [not just to avoid liability in law so that loss falls elsewhere] and then to enforce those so that fraudsters are physically prevented from spoiling the market place.

Some 'body' has to step forward and ensure that fraudsters are effectually excluded from the market place. I am glad that body is our profession. (I'm surprised there was ever any doubt over this.) We exist to ensure that the market for land and property is clean and healthy. This is a prime example of how our profession's primary focus is to uphold the rule of law. The rule of law has, as part of its elements, the protection of public markets..