Buyers put solicitors under more scrutiny

Solicitors engaged in routine property transactions are feeling the heat in the fall-out from the two high-profile cases before the courts. As most of the public do not understand the conveyancing process, there is a severe drop in confidence among ordinary clients doing business.

"I feel under suspicion" is how one solicitor puts it. Most of his business is one-off transactions: "I find myself explaining the entire process - and repeating it to a suspicious face across the desk." He is angry at the Law Society, the banks and mortgage lenders: "We have been working for them on the cheap for years, certifying title and researching land registries. Often we find the ones who are negligent in registering title or tracking deeds or marking mortgages 'vacated' are the banks and lenders - the very ones now screaming 'fraud' at the solicitors profession."

Our informant feels nothing less than a root-and-branch cleansing of the title system will suffice. "The boom encouraged the banks and lenders to lay the onus onto us, to confirm title. Now, they are blaming us, when in fact they wound down their own legal departments, to save costs and speed-up conveyancing and make more greedy profits for themselves."

Listening to his tirade, one shudders for the equanimity for the elders of the Law Society when more like him gather to demand entire reform of the system. In the meantime, be not surprised if more rogue solicitors are flushed out as the banks and lenders engage in panic trawling of titles already "certified" under the current system which lays the burden unfairly on the solicitors - the vast majority are entirely trustworthy and hard-working.