Conveyancing Quality Scheme "CQS"

The Conveyancing Quality Scheme was introduced in 2011 to provide a quality standard for residential property practices. Membership of the scheme gives credibility not only to clients but also the regulators, insurers and lenders. It was designed to help firms deter fraud and improve standards across the residential conveyancing sector.

It is a prerequisite to become a panel member for the vast majority of mortgage providers in the market and therefore if you want to operate in the residential conveyancing market it is imperative that you are CQS accredited. 

The Law Society has already started carrying out audits on CQS accredited firms and as this trend is set to continue with more firms being assessed, it is important that your firm is ready to demonstrate compliance with the CQS standard, the Core Practice Management Standards (“CPMS”) and the CQS Protocol. 

To learn more about the Law Society's Conveyancing Quality Scheme, visit the Law Society's website here. 

The benefits of the Conveyancing Quality Scheme (‘CQS’)

Reduce the risk of claims

Satisfy pre-requisite requirements for lender panel membership

Having standard processes

Potentially reduce your Professional Indemnity Insurance

How We Can Help?

Our CQS Consultancy services include some or all of the following:

  • CQS ready Office Manual
  • Drafting all mandatory policies and procedures
  • Providing template plans, registers and forms
  • Providing precedent letters and reports
  • Preparatory training on CQS for all staff
  • Assisting with your CQS application process
  • Reviewing your terms and conditions of business
  • Reviewing your standard client care letters

The Good News Is...

If you are accredited to the Lexcel v6.1 Standard, you are almost there with the Conveyancing Quality Scheme (‘CQS’) and Core Practice Management Standards (‘CPMS’) requirements. There is some overlap between Lexcel and CQS requirements and therefore sometimes there is very little work to do to get CQS accredited.

Initial Accreditation

With over 20 years’ experience in the residential conveyancing sector, our specialist consultants can help you achieve CQS status from helping you to complete the initial application to putting all the systems, policies and procedures in place to ensure you have the best chance of obtaining the accreditation at the first attempt.

Our consultants have helped dozens of firms set up conveyancing departments from scratch with CQS status. It can take several months of preparatory work putting the appropriate risk management procedures in place and having the right policies and procedures. With our expertise and know-how, we can take the headache away from achieving CQS.

CQS Accredited Firms

Residential Conveyancing is fast paced with a high turnover of clients. Most CQS accredited firms will find that they struggle to keep on top of compliance with CQS. Our consultants with their years of experience in residential conveyancing can help you and your firm stay on top of compliance and manage your department effectively to minimise the risk to your firm.

Do you want to have the peace of mind of knowing that your policies and procedures are up to scratch and the systems you have in place are working? We can carry out a mock audit to ensure that you are fully ready if your firm was subject to a Law Society visit.

Our consultants’ specialist knowledge of the CQS Scheme, the CPMS and the CQS Protocol and more importantly residential property in context means they really know what they are doing. They can help you with whatever you need whether that is getting ready for an audit or creating bespoke risk management forms or just making sure all your policies and procedures are up to date and working.

Lender Panel Membership

Getting on the panel of mortgage lenders can be an arduous task which can take a long time and complicated if you do not know what you are doing. Our consultants have helped firms get onto the panels of major high street lenders with their specialist knowledge of the systems and procedures for panel membership. This can be a speedy process if you know what you are doing.

We can help you navigate through the various platforms for panel memberships as well as help you with individual applications for specific lenders.

CQS Compliance

Setting up a new Residential Conveyancing Department

Given the current legal landscape you may be considering diversifying your law firm and entering the residential conveyancing market. In addition to helping you get CQS accredited, we can help you with the logistics of setting up the new department. Our specialist knowledge of the residential conveyancing sector means we can assist with every aspect of the department setup to include full training for all your staff.
 
Alternatively, if you already have a residential conveyancing department and just need help in streamlining your processes and procedures to make sure your department is running effectively and with the appropriate safeguards in place, we can also help with that. We can review the whole of your department and how it works and identify areas that need further improvement or a total rebuild from scratch.
 
The technical know how that we have and the tools at our disposal means we can make sure you have a fully operational and appropriately risk managed department in no time.
CQS Compliance, CQS Accreditation.

CQS Consultancy

We offer tailor made packages to help with CQS compliance ranging from re-writing your policies and procedures to full compliance support including file reviews.

0333 6666 786