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This absurd requirement will simply lead to [insert name of low cost airline of your choice] type pricing (which has already happened in many conveyancing comparison websites). There will be a cheap headline rate to suck the client in, and then once they've spent half an hour filling in lots of forms there will be disclosed the `optional' additional charges, like a local search, having the solicitor exchange contracts or complete the Land Registry application for you instead of doing it yourself, using the solicitor's client account instead of paying the money directly, etc etc.

And then there will be the luxury items - £100 extra if you want to complete within 6 months, £50 extra if you want a reply to a telephone enquiry within two weeks.

But of course by that time the client has invested so much time and effort completing the online form they are too demoralised to start the process again with another firm.

It's a sad fact of life that the one result of comparison websites is to destroy profits for any honest participant. It forces participants to give dishonest and misleading headline prices because if they don't they won't get any work. The net result is that the most dishonest, most badly run cowboy firms hoover up a disproportionate amount of the work.

We all know that the LSB are a pointless joke who have not the slightest concept of what professionalism means. But the fact that the SRA should, in their utter stupidity, not only entertain such a ridiculous proposal but actively encourage it is yet another vivid demonstration of just how out of touch they are with the profession generally and how totally unfit they are to regulate the profession.