People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones

People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones

There are a lot of different opinions regarding the Law Society’s CQS Scheme, some ‘for’ and some ‘against’. Paul Murden a locum from the South East regularly writes a blog about conveyancing and we thought you might be interested in his views on CQS.  These are Paul’s views and are not those of Today’s Conveyancer:
“I very recently attended a CPD course and the opening speaker was none other than Paul Rose, the assistant chair of the Law Society Conveyancing Committee.
Needless to say he was extolling the virtues of the CQS scheme (well he would wouldn’t he?).
But, throughout his speech (for that was what it was it was hardly educational) He said virtually nothing to encourage the assembled mass of conveyancers about how much it was going to help them increase their business.
He made it very clear that Lenders were very much in favour of it because it would help reduce mortgage fraud which is at epic proportions. I’m sure he’s right about this but should we, as a profession, be taking most of the blame for this. I don’t have figures but I’ll bet that a very small proportion of lost mortgage millions is down to a veritable army of corrupt lawyers. Sure there have been some but I’ll bet a small number have done some big numbers.
He drew attention to foreign lawyers that had been permitted to practice in England & Wales and appeared to be suggesting that a number of them were to blame. Well, whose fault is that? Who gives them practising certificates?
Mortgage fraud, in many cases, I would suggest, starts long before lawyers are even involved…
It seems to me that Lenders should look more to the front line in terms of beefing up vetting procedures for brokers, financial consultants and dare I say it, their own staff when it comes to mortgage applications. Lawyers are being made the scapegoat for their own leaky procedures.
In summary, the CQS scheme has very little to do with promoting quality conveyancing and is more about demonstrating to lenders how we can be good policemen to catch the crooks because they can’t.”
If you would like to read more from Paul his blog is available here.

What do you think about the CQS — do you agree with Paul and believe that the Lenders are blaming the wrong profession for the increase in mortgage fraud?

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