SRA losing anti-money laundering powers is ‘wake up call’ for legal sector
Responding to the news that the Solicitors Regulation Authority is to lose its anti-money laundering responsibilities, with supervision of law firms passed to City watchdog the Financial Conduct Authority, Phil Cotter, CEO of anti-money laundering and digital compliance specialist SmartSearch said it is a ‘wake up call’ to the sector and that the pressure to […]
AML regime responsibility to pass to FCA amid ‘blitz on pointless admin’
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has announced the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) will become the Single Professional Services Supervisor (SPSS) for anti-money laundering (AML) as part of her ‘blitz’ on ‘pointless admin’ In an effort to save £6bn per year by 2029 the chancellor has announced sweeping changes to business bureaucracy at a Regional Investment Summit in […]
Unadopted infrastructure leads to double-whammy to home buyers
Homebuyers could be in effect being charged twice for infrastructure including roads, sewers, and drainage as many new build developments are left entering into private management arrangements after local authorities and utility providers leave them unadopted. In new research from the Home Builders Federation (HBF) many new build developments are passing the cost of these […]
Christmas comes early; buyer slowdown “6-8 weeks earlier than usual”
The traditional seasonal slowdown in homebuyer demand in the run up to Christmas has come six to eight weeks earlier than usual as buyers adopt a ‘wait and see’ approach to moving home ahead of the budget on 26th November. A first annual fall in sales is reported by property website Zoopla in its latest […]
Next generation NLIS platform to be developed with government funding
More details have emerged of the £1m awarded to Land Data to set up a new independent platform that will ‘modernise conveyancing searches’ as part of efforts to improve the homebuying and selling process . It was announced this week the Regulators’ Pioneer Fund (RPF); a Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) programme which fund […]
4 year old conveyancing firm valued at over £20m in PE investment
A Cheltenham-headquartered conveyancing firm has been valued at over £20m just four years after launching following significant private equity investment. Montpellier Legal, with offices Bath, Cheltenham, Cirencester, Gloucester, London, Stroud and Worcester, was launched in 2021 and says it has leveraged technology and invested in its staff to achieve ‘impressive growth since inception.” Founder Simon […]
Reeves may target limited liability partnerships in budget to raise public funds
Chancellor Rachel Reeves may target limited liability partnerships (LLPs) as part of her plans to tax ‘those with the broadest shoulders’ in the upcoming budget. Tasked with filling a sizeable hole in the public finances, in part due to the unexpected longer term impact of Brexit and austerity, the chancellor is reported to be considering […]
Property trends and Project 28
In the latest, shorter episode of the Today’s Conveyancer podcast, host David Opie is joined by Rob Gurney, Managing Director at Ochresoft, and Ben Robinson, Managing Director at Landmark Estate Agency Services, to discuss the latest statistics to come out of the quarterly Property Trends Report. But there’s not much to say… the property market […]
Diary of a High Street Conveyancer – Back to school
As I have written before, the joy and frustration of being a conveyancer is that you never know what a day will throw at you. We turn up at work and start dealing with emails, telephone calls and perhaps do some proper law if we get the time! But we need to show the public […]
“However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results”
Beyond the provocative headline “SRA stripped…”, which evokes the dramatic image of an army officer being relieved of duty, epaulets torn off and authority handed over, this shift in AML oversight to the Financial Conduct Authority invites reflection. It also makes room for a timely reminder from Winston Churchill: “However beautiful the strategy, you should […]