Under pressure: conveyancers’ caseloads rocket as transactions rebound in July
Conveyancers are “under pressure” as caseloads remain significantly elevated from pre-pandemic levels, with Search Acumen’s latest Conveyancing Market Tracker showing a 34% increase in their workloads. The Tracker also showed that the typical firm registered 76 transactions in Q2 2022, compared with 57 in Q2 2019, an indication of the resilience of the market in […]
Mortgage activity to drop over the rest of the year
New market analysis has found that mortgage activity is set to drop over the rest of 2022 as the market feels the brunt of interest rate hikes, with some estimating a fall of as much as 6%. Current market trends According to Zoopla’s House Price Index for July 2022, house price growth remains strong at […]
Register of Overseas Entities: getting ready for 5th September
The Register of Overseas Entities was launched on 1st August and the land registration elements will come into force on Monday 5th September – one week from today. From this date, applications to HM Land Registry to register overseas entities as the proprietor of a qualifying estate will require an Overseas Entity ID from Companies […]
Gazundering affecting one in two transactions – claim
Home buyers are regularly gazundering the seller at the last minute and forcing them to take thousands of pounds less for their property, with one firm claiming that it is occurring as regularly as once in every two transactions. Homebuyers “price chip” by demanding money off the agreed sale price just before the sale is […]
Relationships remain key in the age of technology
Personal relationships are still the heartbeat of business success, despite the increasing use of technology. Personal relationships convey how we value one another. Personal relationships enable us to have empathy with one another’s situations. In his seminal book, “How to win friends and influence people,” Dale Carnegie wrote: “If there is any one secret of […]
How law firms must adapt to thrive in a changing conveyancing sector
The conveyancing sector continues to set records against past years as new trends emerge in the housing market, and law firms adapt and compete with the rising demand. The housing market has shown its resilience over the past few years, staying surprisingly strong throughout the Covid pandemic. This was particularly helped by the exodus of […]
The Ombudsman’s corner: 29th August 2022
The Ombudsman’s corner: recent changes – taking the right approach for each case The Legal Services Act 2007, which set up the Legal Ombudsman, requires that we complete our work “quickly and with minimum formality”. Demand for our service has never been higher, and there have been significant waiting times for us to begin investigating […]
Help to buy losing the battle for Generation Rent
The UK Government released the Q1 2022 Help to Buy Statistics in August. What they said Between 1st January and 31st March 2022, 5,395 properties were purchased with a Help to Buy equity loan. This was 65% lower than the same period last year, and 40% lower than in the previous quarter. The value of […]
CMA provides encouraging update for leaseholders
In news that has been welcomed by the National Leasehold Campaign (NLC), the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has announced that thousands of leaseholders who paid a doubled ground rent will receive refunds, and nine more companies will remove these costly terms from leasehold contracts. The CMA has secured undertakings from nine companies that bought […]
PEXA announces results for the last financial year
PEXA has published its financial results for the year ending June 2022, with the Australia-based digital property settlements platform posted a 27% growth in revenue. The results also showed a growth in transfer market penetration, which increased to 85%, and this combined to cause a 22% increase in PEXA Exchange volumes to 4.05 million. Revenue […]
