The Conveyancing Task Force (CTF), a group of conveyancers and law firms formed in response to the governments proposed home buying and selling reforms, has issued a comprehensive response to the consultation on reforms, which was submitted following a meeting with representatives from the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG).
The CTF says it supports the ambition of creating a faster and more reliable homebuying process, but emphasises that the primary barriers to progress are not technological.
Instead, the CTF believes structural, behavioural, regulatory and accountability failures are “the true causes of delay, cost and consumer harm”.
In its consultation response, the CTF highlights several key areas it says contribute to delays and consumer harm in the homebuying process:
- Overlapping obligations such as anti-money laundering regulations and building safety legislation create unavoidable friction and cost.
- Delays caused by opaque lender panel practices, inconsistent instructions, and slow decision-making.
- Delays in local authority searches, incomplete Land Registry data, and local authority failures to enforce planning obligations.
- Lawtech providers shifting liability for data accuracy onto consumers and property lawyers.
- Contradictory or outdated statutes create significant friction points.
The CTF argues that structural inefficiencies arise from public-sector delays, lender requirements, inconsistent enforcement, and legal and regulatory obligations and asserts that technology is not a substitute for legal judgment. Digitalisation moves risk towards consumers without statutory liability, the CTF said, and calls for reforms that address the causes of delay, not just the symptoms.
The CTF outlines several guiding principles for reform:
- A national roll-out should occur only where empirical evidence shows reduced transaction time, lower fall-through rates, and reduced consumer cost.
- Liability should sit with those who control the data
- Reforms must strengthen legal oversight, supervision, competency, and enforcement against misrepresentation and construction defects.
- Digital tools should support practitioners but not replace legal scrutiny.
- Reforms should be phased, compatible with regulatory frameworks, and supported by clear liability rules.
Members agree with the objectives of improving speed, certainty, and consumer outcomes, the CTF said, but not that digitalisation is the central solution.
“The Task Force supports the overarching aims of improving speed, reducing abortive cost, and strengthening consumer protection but emphasises addressing structural, regulatory, and accountability failures,” it said in a statement.
The CTF makes several key recommendations:
- Mandate lenders to publish objective, lawful, non-discriminatory lender panel criteria.
- Reframe AML obligations so UK-regulated banks hold primary AML responsibility.
- Introduce legal liabilities on lawtech businesses for the accuracy of the data they produce.
- Prioritise investment in HMLR capacity before mandating digital logbooks.
- Introduce statutory deadlines for local authority searches with enforceable consequences.
- Require stronger supervision, competence standards, and regulatory oversight in high-volume hybrid firms.
- ·Consult practicing property lawyers before legislating and avoid contradictory objectives.
“The conveyancing system requires targeted, practitioner-led reform rather than wholesale, tech-driven restructuring,” the CTF concluded.
“The conveyancing system is not broken.”
11 responses
The Task Force’s multi-layered submission recognises that conveyancing is a complex, risk-laden process and not something that can be meaningfully improved through superficial or technology-driven reform alone. It usefully challenges many of the assumptions underpinning current policy proposals and redirects attention to the structural, regulatory and behavioural causes of delay and consumer harm.
The analysis and recommendations set out here are grounded in practical reality. Any reform programme that ignores the real causes of delay risks misdiagnosing the problem and applying the wrong solutions. For those reasons, this is a valuable contribution that deserves serious consideration and public approbation.
Well done CTF. I could not agree more. I have lost count of the number of times I’ve heard about this tech or that tech that’s going to revolutionise conveyancing when we already use so much technology. Technology is not the answer to speedier conveyancing. If the government wants reform they need to listen to the people at the coal face of conveyancing.-the CTF are clearly qualified for this job!
This is an important reminder that reform must be legally sound and grounded in where responsibility and liability actually sit.
It also highlights the need for the profession itself to be clear-eyed about the different actors shaping this reform, how they came to occupy that position, and the interests and incentives they bring. Government will inevitably listen to those who are most organised and most present.
This consultation exposes two distinct and often competing interests: those who design and profit from digital systems with limited liability, and those who remain professionally regulated and legally accountable for the outcome. If conveyancers do not articulate that distinction clearly, others will define the narrative for us.
It is not too late for conveyancers to have their say – seven days remain before the consultation closes on 29 January.
https://consult.communities.gov.uk/home-buying-and-selling/home-buying-and-selling-reform/
Again, no detail of who the CTF are, who the membership consists of. Just a group of anti-technology old fashioned people scared of change.
To anon- the conveyancing task force is made up of conveyancers from all walks of life including firms, licensed conveyancers, non-qualified but experienced conveyancers, solicitors and law societies, I know because I asked them – people who care about their profession and the service levels they give to clients who, doing their job daily recognise the actual issues the conveyancing profession face on a daily basis. It has nothing to do with their views on technology because they can see that throwing technology at it will not fix the issues. Interesting that you’re too cowardly to go on record as to who you really are. I suspect you hail from one of those technology companies or are in their pocket at the very least.
Ach, come on anon – show yourself…
Good point Anon… and who are you?
Governments have no place in interfering with how professional services (with their own regulatory framework already in place) are carried out, particularly when most of us are now aware that their motivations for doing so, whilst they purport to be in the interests of the people, more often reflect commercial or other supra-national interests, which have nothing to do with benefiting the general population; every lawyer – whatever their background or area of work, has a moral and ethical duty to protect the interests of clients and people in general, in the interests of justice.
Over the last five years, more and more people have woken up to what governments “get up to”, in reality, and this is one example where such fictional reforms must be fiercely resisted by all who genuinely care about society.
Says the “Anon” person asking who the CTF are. Hilarious!
So, still no detail Of the CTF?! Assume you’re a member Bobby. I’m anon, I’m a conveyancer, don’t want to give my name or the firm I work for, but I don’t hide behind a pointless group resisting change. Who will blame every other aspect but never offer any solutions.
If the CTF have any legitimacy then provide the member firms on here. I’ll offer my name and firm in response but bet you any money it won’t be needed.
In response to Anon’s comment, it’s worth clarifying it does not reflect the reality of the Conveyancing Task Force.
The Task Force includes a broad cross-section of practitioners actively working with technology every day – including firms already using digital ID, automation, and data-driven workflows. The concern is not technology itself, but unaccountable technology being introduced faster than the legal and regulatory framework that exists to protect consumers.
Questioning liability, data custodianship, and professional accountability is not fear of change; it is the responsibility of regulated professionals.
If those distinctions are not made clearly, others will define the narrative – often inaccurately.