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I heard recently of a buyer being offered a £10000 incentives package only on the basis that they used preferred Solicitors. Apparently the Developers Consumer Code makes this legal, but how can the Solicitor acting for said buyer truly be acting independently and with no conflict of interest? If you have that instruction purely because of your status as a preferred Conveyancer, then you cannot be truly independent? In another case I know of a Conveyancer who had to instruct a firm of Solicitors when she was buying a property because she would have received no incentives if a colleague had carried out her conveyancing. Again apparently legal but surely suspect in terms of the possible conflict?

So for once an MP seems to be correct in his assumption. And of course the outcome in all this is the number of buyers of newbuild properties who ultimately have problems with Leases and condition of their houses due to the standardised, and not very expert, advice they received.

I have worked in a factory where they were preferred Conveyancers to a Builder. Untrained inexperienced staff bashing out Contract Reports on receipt of papers without checking titles (which they would not have understood anyway). The amount of times we received leasehold papers and because the case handlers didn't know what they were looking for and sent out freehold reports was laughable. That was just the tip of the iceberg for what went on. Suffice to say I didn't waste my time there for long. But even stranger this firm still carries out conveyancing, which shows another fault in the system entirely!