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A firm of solicitors can act for the lender and borrower in the same transaction without any apparent conflict of interest and at the same time substantially narrow the choice for the borrower on pain of forcing them to pay double fees.

But where a company with a sole shareholder/director takes out a mortgage, the same lender and their solicitors will force the director to obtain 'independent legal advice' (ILA) from another unconnected firm.

So explain to me how is it that the lender and their legal advisers are content to have the same solicitors acting in the mortgage itself where the parties genuinely have opposing interests but force the company to incur costs to have another solicitor go over the papers again and advise the director all that he or she knows anyway from the main transaction?

Declaration of interest: our firm has been kicked off a number of panels for no apparent reason but we are doing many of the ILAs which the banks force parties to take. It doesn't make much sense much of the time but we weren't consulted in either case.