Conveyancing will be fully electronic by 2030 and could become a service offering from estate agents, according to predictions.
In Scotland, estate agency and conveyancing are routinely offered by the same solicitor firms.
A discussion paper published by the Council for Licensed Conveyancers (CLC) ahead of its annual conference in London today has unveiled a range of predictions on how the market in England and Wales could look by 2030.
It predicts the conveyancing process will be fully electronic, following efforts by the Land Registry to digitise its services, leaving conveyancers to focus on provide advice and support to clients to ensure their interests are best represented.
New technology such as Open Banking will also help money move around quicker while better access to data could mean more effective information is provided upfront, according to the report.
Estate agents may become more interested in providing conveyancing themselves as the role becomes more advisory, the report predicts.
It said: “As the conveyancer’s role becomes more focused on the advisory, consolidation will occur – and the figures on active firms in the market indicates that it already is – and estate agencies will find it easier to provide legal services using alternative business structures.”
Dame Janet Paraskeva, chair of the CLC, said: “Many lawyers will be heartened by the prediction that there will be a greater focus on advisory work as the market changes and that it can be used to create a point of differentiation.
“However, while we can predict certain shifts in the market with confidence – in particular the inevitable move to electronic conveyancing – how they play out over the next decade remains uncertain.
“With so much work going on to improve and reform the process, we think now is the right time to take a wider view on what this all means in the long term and how we can ensure that the home buying and selling process works best for consumers, service providers and ultimately the UK economy.
“We do not claim to have all the answers, but with change coming it is vital that we as a regulator and the community we regulate are thinking about how we make sure we are ready for what future developments may bring.
“I hope this report will fuel a discussion across the property industry and that conveyancers themselves will grasp the opportunity to shape their future.”
Conveyancing standards get worse and worse every year. This year being the worst yet – so this article makes a perfect prediction, yes.
(I just went through the US house sale process, and what a shambles, seriously awful. The estate agent was a mess, and the interaction with the legal side was a dog’s dinner.)
Those law firms we witness currently dealing 100% electronically have the worst conveyancing standards. Black & white documents, errors from failure to proof read before sending, etc etc.
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Let us hope this prediction does not come true. I agree firms who claim to have the best technology are in reality just bad conveyancers with (good?) technology. I use the term conveyancers very loosely to describe their ability to do the job.
The suggestion in this article will only make things worse. If there is a bright spot for me it’s that I will have retired by 2030 and won’t have to try and make sense of the inevitable fallout from this. I pity clients though trying to buy their dream houses as I dread to think of the standards of people who will still be bothering to work in conveyancing by that time. Robots probably. Fraud will be rife and chaos will reign.
Oh dear does anyone care anymore about client service?
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So a lease query will be resolved by a robot? F##K Wits!
When is the industry going to wake up. The old archaic conveyancing process has to change completely. The onus for provision of all documents necessary to effect an exchange must be shifted to the seller and properties cannot be listed for sale until the vendors solicitor/conveyancer has absolutely everything, except survey. If docs expire, tough. They’ll have to be renewed. And, chains will become history. Lenders must be forced to administer a mortgage applicatios prior to a property being found and offer subject to valuation/survey.
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