CLC publishes new Risk Agenda, with a focus on ethics and a warning against post-completion ‘slacking’

The Council for Licensed Conveyancers has published its Risk Agenda for 2025, which encourages conveyancers to focus on ethics and ethical conduct. The CLC has also warned against treating post-completion HM Land Registry applications ‘as an afterthought’.

The new Risk Agenda underlines ‘the fundamental importance’ of ethics and ethical conduct, and sets out what the CLC says are profession-wide concerns it has identified in its monitoring and supervision of CLC practices.

‘The Risk Agenda is useful resource to help practices maintain compliance and address risk and we strongly practices to review it and where necessary, take steps to address risk and ensure compliance’, the CLC said.

“However, as well as ensuring compliance with the black and white letter of all CLC Codes, this year we encourage practices to focus in particular on the ethical principles in the revised Code of Conduct and the culture within their practice.”

The CLC is particularly keen to stress the importance of acting with due diligence when completing HMLR applications, reminding conveyancers that ‘taking the fee and not completing the work’ demonstrates a lack of integrity and breaches the Accounts Code.

The regulator explained:

“The term ‘post-completion’ can feed into the notion that the applications to HMLR and, where needed, elsewhere (such as Companies House) are an afterthought, especially as they are done after collecting the fee.

“The reality is that clients have been charged for this work and there is an obligation to perform it promptly and with diligence.”

Failing to respond properly to HMLR requisitions can lead to registrations being cancelled, the CLC warned – a problem that may only manifest itself many years later when the owner wants to sell.

‘One firm was removed from a leading lender’s panel last year because it failed to improve its performance around requisitions, despite being given several opportunities’,  the organisation said – adding that HMLR is now sharing requisitions data with regulators.

The problem with HMLR applications was highlighted by the CLC last year, when the number of complaints it received about practices breaching their undertakings led to the publication of a new advisory note on the issue. And, although the regulator has said it understands that individual breaches can sometimes be due to the action or inaction of a third party, it is increasing its activity on the issue and tracking practices with repeated or systemic breaches.

‘Problems can emerge from practices not having proper processes in place post-completion or even to provide undertakings in the first place’, the CLC noted.

Further areas highlighted in the new Risk Agenda are the rise in the number of CLC practices prepared to act where cryptocurrencies are part of a transaction, acting when funding originated in China despite the Chinese government’s strict controls on transferring personal funds out of the country, and the growing number of properties being sold at auction.

‘This can potentially expose CLC practices to the risk of committing a money laundering offence, particularly where there are known or suspected concerns about the extent and/or quality of due diligence’, the CLC said.

Despite the focus on ethics and ethical conduct, the regulator added that compliance and standards of conduct of CLC lawyers remain high.

CLC chair Dame Janet Paraskeva (pictured) commented:

“The CLC has long been and remains on the front foot in ensuring that the sector we regulate is held to account to the highest standards of integrity and ethical conduct so fundamental to maintaining public trust and confidence in the legal profession. 

“So I am very proud to say that, against a backdrop of media reports which underscore the importance of maintaining high standards of ethical conduct in the legal profession, the CLC has once more not shied away from reforms which, in the interests of consumers, set more exacting requirements when it comes to the professional conduct of the conveyancers and probate lawyers we regulate.

“The Risk Agenda is the result of our detailed insight and monitoring, highlighting how the principal risks in the sector can be mitigated through proactive best practices as well as the areas of particular focus for the CLC. I urge those we regulate – and indeed others in the property world – to read it closely.”

Further topics covered by the Risk Agenda include complaints handling, IT resilience and recovery, anti-money laundering, sanctions, compliance with the Accounts Code, conflicts of interest, breaches of undertakings, file storage and closing a practice.

It can be downloaded at https://www.clc-uk.org/risk_agenda/