As members of the Law Society Conveyancing Quality Scheme, we wrote to HSBC to enquire whether or not we were still on their panel of solicitors as we had been for many years. We received a letter from Countrywide Property Services to advise that they were administering the HSBC panel and that there were no opportunities to join the panel in our area.

We duly telephoned HSBC to clarify the situation and were referred to Countrywide. When we spoke to Countrywide, we asked which firm or firms would be covering our locality and they told us there was no access to the list of members on the panel and they simply allocated the next firm of solicitors on the list, having regard to the geography of the applicant. They confirmed that if mortgage applicants wanted to use their own solicitors, then they would be charged £192 to cover the cost of separate bank representation.

It seems that not only is the majority of the profession excluded from the HSBC panel, it is to be a secret list administered by a licensed conveyancing company which surely has a vested interest in sending cases to their own conveyancing teams. Or are we missing something here? I commend those solicitors who are removing their accounts from HSBC as there are so few ways of registering our discontent.

Teresa Waters, managing partner, Waters & Co, Birmingham