What is the CQS Conveyancing Quality Scheme for solicitors?

The Law Society set up its Conveyancing Quality Scheme (CQS) accreditation to indicate, for customers wishing to instruct conveyancing solicitors, those practices which it considers offer the highest standards in this legal area. The idea behind CQS is to give greater reassurance for everyone in the conveyancing process confirming that the solicitor providing the service can deliver the appropriate quality of service and level of insurance.

Please note that SAM Conveyancing only employs solicitor firms which have attained the Conveyancing Quality Scheme accreditation.

The Law Society was once both regulator and solicitor manager for solicitors in England & Wales; however it now represents and promotes solicitors, leaving the Solicitor Regulatory Authority (SRA) to oversee all regulatory and compliance issues for the delivery of legal services by solicitors.

Prior to the establishment of the CQS accreditation, the Law Society had received many complaints about the quality of service delivered by solicitors offering conveyancing. It is well understood that hold-ups and failures during a house move can be very stressful for customers and can also cause financial loss. The Law Society brought CQS in to give the public reassurance of an agreed standard of service that they’ll receive from a solicitor with this accreditation.

In order for a solicitor to attain accreditation they must pass a rigorous test by The Law Society for Probity and Quality.

The section on Probity will comprise three sub-sections, The Practice, the Partners and other Staff at the firm, and Consistency of answers in the preceding two sub-sections.

This sub-section on the practice will look at the longevity and stability of the firm, its financial position, its policies and processes and its ability to get PI insurance.

This sub-section will look verify the identity of and look at the at the professional record of the Senior Responsible Officer along with his CPD record and at the information that he provides about other partners and all Relevant Members of Staff within the firm.

This sub-section will be used to cross reference information supplied on the application form with other information, either public or otherwise. For example the disciplinary record of the partners and Relevant Members of Staff will be checked against the SRA regulatory decisions pages.

This sub-section will look at the processes and procedures for the four Core Practice Standards in relation to conveyancing.

It is clear that the CQS mark ensures the conveyancing solicitor has the right people to provide the service and safe processes and procedures to deliver it.

More and more, mortgage lenders are requesting that their chosen solicitor to act for them should be a CQS solicitor. This is making it harder for some of the smaller non-accredited solicitor practices to act for buyers on a property transaction if they choose a mortgage lender that requires the CQS.

All of the solicitors who work on the SAM Conveyancing panel carry the CQS accreditation and work on all major mortgage lender panels.