I have read through all of the comments posted last Thursday, and I set out below what I hope is a summary of the points and issues raised.
Before I (and others) put together a comprehensive response. I would like to know if I have missed anything off of my list?
- Providing information up front/creating a property transaction pack wont work, unless made mandatory
- The buyer’s property lawyer won’t accept the searches obtained by the seller or their property lawyer
- The searches will go out of date in 3-6 months
- Collating and providing Information up front won’t speed the process up
- The conveyancer will be distracted from more current work whilst setting up a file
- The workload of the conveyancer will increase as there will be a significant number of properties that come to market and never become, sold subject to contract
- Why should the agent and/or the conveyancer spend time on a matter that will cost time and money if a property never goes to sale?
- Most sales are held up by an incomplete chain, not searches or other delays
- Technology is the answer
- The whole conveyancing process should be overhauled
- Surveys and mortgage offers also cause delays
- Some agents say it is too much effort to promote packs to their sellers
- Upfront charging puts some off. How much would/should a property lawyer charge (if anything) to open a file and help compile a pack?
- The large estate agents will not want to lose the revenue they gain from their panel solicitors ordering searches for purchases (and having to use the estate agents chose search provider who they have a referral agreement with)
- It is a people problem not a process problem
- One conveyancer should act for the whole chain
- Will management company/freeholder information (for leaseholds) go out of date?
With the June SDLT deadline fast approaching, One final thought:
I have a pleasant half a mile walk along the back roads of Torquay to my office at Torquay railway station every day. As I am an early riser (usually 6.00am) I litter pick. Unfortunately, I have to do this every two days because fresh litter is being dropped constantly.
Why bother, I am not keeping Torquay clean, let alone the country or the planet? Because my efforts mean that those roads are more pleasant for me and others to walk on or live in, than the surrounding ones.
Just because only a few people do what I do, does not mean I (or they) should stop. Hopefully one day litter will stop being dropped, or more likely, more people will litter pick and Torquay (and our other towns and cities) will be virtually litter free.
My point? Please don’t wait for part three of this debate to be published, talk to your conveyancer contacts today. Even if for now, you are only making a difference to your section of a chain, it is still making a difference, and we have to start somewhere.
Improving the home buying and selling process should begin with estate agents
Until the whole way in which the legal profession conducts its business, and specifically the process of moving the title from one party to the next is changed, nothing will change. I think you need to add ‘changing gatekeeper mindsets’ to the list Rob. In fact for well over a decade you have been advocating the modernisation of the sector and that tells you the problem, many senior partners do not want to innovate – the cost, and conveyancing despite the ‘big players’ is like estate agency, very much a cottage industry, with a huge flank of small businesses catering for the 1.4M agreed sales a year that become the 1.1M completions. The other arc that needs to be dealt with is of course the lender the mortgagees, these are the prime movers in this battle. Conveyancing though primarily for the ‘client’ in reality is majoritively there to ensure that if finance is in play the lender will not at a future date sue a conveyancer for ‘getting it wrong’. Speaking as a person who is dealing with a number of key people in the legal sector and the proptech sector all wanting to put the process on rollerskates, the view I formulate is that there is very little interest by the legal profession to change. If anyone takes the time to read the major legal publications including Legal futures, Conveyancing Today, Law Society Gazette and of course The Bold Legal group, which I look at daily, with my journalist/Editor/analyst hats it is not the articles or updates that are indicative of this – ‘no change here policy’ it is the comments that those in the legal profession make – that are very telling. Change will come when the 25 year old graduates in the legal system are 45 and are in positions of power, these tech natives will for sure being doing legals in a 2040 digital manner as their brains will be hardwired to this approach.
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One comment that was raised previously and something that has been discussed in other forums is that if AML was carried out by a single body which agents/mortgage brokers/conveyancers can all tap into without each of us carrying out the same requests it would be simpler and more cost effective all round. As one of the delays we seem to find with conveyancers is that they don’t open the file until they have had all their customer care letters signed and AML searches completed and if at least the AML stuff was readily at hand that must save some time.
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Replying to the comment ‘There is very little interest by the legal profession to change’:
I don’t believe that the legal profession don’t see a need for change – ask any Conveyancer how long they think they want to go on working as they do.
I don’t believe that the legal profession don’t want to embrace technology – search applications, Land Registry, portals, digitalised signatures – tech change is happening in the profession.
The issue is that all of this change has been funded by someone else. The truth is the majority of the legal profession cannot justify investing considerable money into Conveyancing departments that are usually just breaking even and often losing money. If a third party funds the technology it will be embraced but if you are waiting for conveyancers to stump up huge amounts of money when the world wants them to work for £750 a case, yes – it will be a long time coming.
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JustaThought – I totally agree, the fee structure for loss leader conveyancing is madness, and ability to adopt technology is a cost not just in money but trainig etc, and the slim to zero margins preclude this. On the flipside, with automated systems a lot of the ‘grunt’ work can be elimated. With agents you had applicant cards, then CRM’s and now software is directly interfacing with applicants, dicing and slicing them, booking them in for appointments, facilatating all their needs – before a human gets involved. With 60% of a company’s spend being salaries, using these people to drive businesses forward rather than shackling them to repetitive brain boring, paper shuffling tasks is not the smart way to do business. Also your digital native customer is increasingly not going to do business with legal practioners who feel that paper,envelope and franking machine is business etiquette in 2025. Amazon the e-commerce platform is thriving as it gives instant UX to the client, the legal sector needs to get on board with this concept, the winners will be those who adapt. In the past 80% of new clients to solicitors would be introduced via a family friend or personal recommendation, the digital savvy consumer ‘buys’ goods are services in a very different way.
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“A small adjustment is all that is needed – instruct solicitors at the time of going to market, and we get our CDD complete and a completed PIF, reviewing it and asking for follow up info from the seller, knowing what docs the Buyer’s sols will want. I did this for my own sale recently – the result was that one comprehensive pack went out (no searches), (planning permissions downloadable from the portal) one set of enquiries came in (which took less than 30 minutes to answer) and the next step was exchange! If the seller’s solicitors get prepared, this can take weeks off a transaction. But we are not in favour of a prescribed pack per se. We just do our job as we usually would, but we do it earlier on a sale, and we proactively get ready what needs to provided to the buyer’s solicitors (including indemnity insurance) making it easier and quicker for the buyer’s solicitor. A shift in culture is what is needed. And whilst you may spend more time on a sale getting ready, you will spend less time chasing your tail on a purchase. And transactions will get through quicker and with less stress and less to-ing and fro-ing, and the way we do this is to shorten the legal enquiry section of the transaction.” BLG Member
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Here here Rob! “We just do our job as we usually would, but we do it earlier on a sale”
This will help tremendously, as it did with your own sale!
It seems crazy to me that conveyancers don’t, and won’t, do this already!!
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“My friends are moving, they found a property, with a nice large garden but part only fenced off with a stock fence. Seller told them it had to stay like that for sight lines for traffic on adjoining side road which was rubbish. I obtained office copies over that weekend to check title and identified the seller did not own half the garden. When nearby development and a new road took place, he fenced off the remaining land to incorporate into his garden. Having only lived there for a few years he would not be able to obtain adverse possession of title either. When challenged again about the garden, he confirmed he had put the fence up and that his application for possession was pending at HMLR, again, not correct. They walked away and found another property. My friends were lucky they did not wate vast mounts of time and money. A Property Transaction Pack would have identified these issues much earlier on.” BLG Member
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Lost count the number of boundary issues I’ve had to tackle. I have an on-going one at the moment on an unadopted road which is taking weeks of back and forth correspondances to sort it out. Seeing as the tile plan is already available for most properties (if its registered, many still aren’t) this would be a simple process to reduction in later wasted time but …… will the vendor pay the costs if there is no sale agreed and is speculating? Often it is the buyer who notices the boundary change as converyancers do not visit properties. It was once said that most agents instructions are speculative which turns the market over, only a few in comparison are necessity.
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Its not just culture. Its due legal process that is fraught with corruption and fraud which leads to; duty of care, breach of practice codes and litigation. With the best will in the world unless you can overcome those issues, every person who is likely to be on the receiving end/liability, is going to argue against changes. Everything on-line sounds perfect where information can be ticked off and submitted.
Authentication on some key documents/enquiries is one area I would like to know how can be totally fraud/corruption proof when it is people generated. Standard enquiries are principally already covered on-line.
Initially survey should be a simple walk around tick the box allowing the property owner the opportunity investigate further and what they are likely to walk into (they do). This would not be costly and similar charge to having an EPC (EPC involves more work) and not involve reams of paper on ‘I looked, couldn’t see, so get a specialist if your worried’ or forced by a buyers lender and I’ll charge you average £1k for saying nothing definitive on a Home Buyers Report which will be done later in any event?
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If everyone identified what they ‘can’ do to help speed up matters, it will be a start.
I love the litter picking analogy. I believe that my business is helping pick up litter. It doesn’t clean up the entire country, but it does make that paths our mutual clients tread that bit more pleasant to walk along.
We know that we are unlikely to change the whole market over night, but are resolute in making a difference for those that wish to improve upon the status quo, no matter how little the improvement may first appear. A marathon starts with just one step.
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