We don't like...

The UK's largest mortgage lender, Halifax Bank of Scotland, has announced that all its new build valuations must go through its own in-house valuation company, Colleys.

It insists that other lenders operate panels of surveyors; however, it fails to address the point that most other lenders allow brokers and clients to chose which surveyor they use as long as they are on this panel. I find this very worrying, for a number of reasons.

As we all know competition is a good thing and markets which lack competition, are not normally as efficient or cheap as competitive markets. Brokers and borrowers deserve and should have the right to chose which surveyor is used and not have one forced on them.

· Jonathan Cornell is technical director of Hamptons, tel: 020-7220-1000