2021 property law update: A free CPD webinar from Stewart Title & Ian Quayle

Webinar: Adopting A Digital Culture In Conveyancing

Anyone working in property will know that 2021 has been an exceptionally busy year for conveyancers but it has also been another bumper year for property legislation and caselaw. “With so many important changes and proposals affecting conveyancing, we thought it was the perfect time to ask well respected speaker Ian Quayle to look at […]

Convey Law donates vital funds to UK charities carrying out vital work overseas

Leading charity-fundraising conveyancing practice Convey Law has donated £3000 to help a Pakistani village complete a vital water filtration project meaning they have clean water for the very first time.  The company has also donated funds to other UK-based charities undertaking work internationally. The Humanitarian Group Pakistan, which took on the crucial project, was nominated […]

Brick works, clay pits and quarries: A Cardiff case study

Groundsure client care clauses

Would you be surprised if we told you that 21.11% of all properties in Cardiff lie within our non-coal alert area? The city of Cardiff has undergone enormous transformation in recent decades and it is easy to miss the risk posed by historic mining legacy, given the extent of residential development and commercial expansion. But […]

InfoTrack scales up to meet digital AP1 influx

infotrackprofile

In response to the recent announcement from HM Land Registry advising all register update applications will be required to be submitted digitally from November 2022, InfoTrack is scaling up its dedicated post-completion service to support the industry during this transition. The move announced last week has caught many in the industry by surprise but is […]

SRA has no plans to reform indemnity insurance market

Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) leaders have commented they have no plans to reform the indemnity insurance market. Delegates at the SRA’s recent compliance conference raised the issue of increasing premiums, saying that price hikes will inevitably affect the survival of many firms. But despite concerns the SRA has signalled it is unwilling to step in. […]

Are we ready to adopt UPRNs?

Unique property reference numbers (UPRNs) have the potential to be a game changing innovation in the property sector according to the Conveyancing Information Executive, and partners including Ordnance Survey, major search providers Groundsure and Landmark, and property and addressing data providers Land Data and GeoPlace. A roundtable hosted at the Ordnance Survey Head Offices in […]

Diary of a High Street Conveyancer; 29th November 2021

There are those times when a client calls … “Hello, you may not remember me but you acted when I bought my house four years ago. I wonder if you could just witness my signature on a document.” Those words ‘just”… although actually the entire phrase ‘just witness my signature on a document’ leads to […]

HMLR announces updates to form RXC

Following customer feedback HMLR has now published an updated version 2 of its form RXC. Form RXC is a new way to provide a consent or certificate to comply with a restriction in the register and has been available since the end of July 2021. The changes have been prompted after HMLR was able to hear […]

The Dispute Service selected as New Homes Ombudsman

The Dispute Service has been selected as the New Homes Ombudsman after it won a competitive six-month tendering process. The New Homes Quality Board (NHQB) has announced that The Dispute Service will act as the independent ombudsman tasked with enforcing a new housebuilding industry code of practice “the New Homes Quality Code” (NHQC). The new […]

Conveyancing digitisation no longer “science fiction”

Transaction delays show a need for SDLT holiday extension

A few years ago, the words “digital” and “digitisation” were bandied around the property sector a lot and, for a while at least, I know many conveyancers simply saw this as some kind of science fiction talk. A look way into the future rather than propositions with any immediacy. It all sounded somewhat glamorous and […]

5 easy wins to improve your AML compliance

Amy Bell

Last month Today’s Conveyancer reported that failure to introduce “proper risk assessments” was the number one AML failure in the recent SRA Report on their Anti Money Laundering work. What is clear from the SRA’s report is firm visits are here to stay, and that when they come, they are thorough reviews of what a […]

SRA proposing to end post six-year run-off cover

The SRA has announced proposals to end the provision of post six-year run-off cover (PSYROC), because the protection is thought to be disproportionately expensive. If effective, this means that the Solicitors Indemnity Fund (SIF), which provides the additional cover for closed firms, would end, and any remaining funds would be handed to the Law Society. The […]