News brought to you by the Today’s Conveyancer editorial team.
UK residential property transactions have, as expected, beaten all previous records as home movers sought to take advantage of the June SDLT holiday deadline. Figures released this morning by HMRC show that property sales hit
Bold Legal Group, a nationwide association of 700 conveyancing law firms is launching a new online forum designed to foster better relationships between conveyancing practitioners and estate agents. Founder and CEO Rob Hailstone has recently
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has issued fines to seven practices that have failed to comply with anti-money laundering (AML) requirements. The firms affected are Manchester practice Law Together LLP, Telford-based Picasso Legal Limited, Smooth
Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick has this morning previewed his view of the future of British house building in an article in The Times. “Building Beautiful Places” sets out a vision of “a planning system that
The former owner of a West London law firm has been jailed for three years and four months for SDLT theft. An HMRC investigation has revealed that Manpreet Singh (formerly Munpreet Singh Virdee), the owner
Homeowners in England and Wales will now have 15 years to legally challenge shoddy building work, rather than the current six-year window in which legal action can be brought against developers. The change was introduced
Property completions are up 85% in June 2021 versus 2019, as the industry races to beat Stamp Duty holiday deadline. Meanwhile, conveyancers experienced ‘Christmas in June’, as ‘completion to instruction ratio’ matches pre-Christmas rush seen
A leading Welsh training academy still has conveyancing training course places available free of charge for legal practices and property companies in Wales, as well as England, after being awarded £1 million of funding to
Today’s Conveyancer is delighted to launch our very first podcast in collaboration with Lawyer Checker. In this first podcast, Tom Lyes, Director of Engagement at Lawyer Checker talks to Hannah Ouseley, who recently appeared on
The SDLT holiday “experiment” has worked and should not stop now, says a report by the London School of Economics for the Family Building Society, revealing that scrapping SDLT altogether could yield greater benefit for
Following the news that the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched formal enforcement cases against Amazon and Google over the use of fake reviews on their platforms, legal professionals are becoming increasingly concerned about fake
The number of people who own a second home has risen 33% in ten years according to data from the English Housing Survey. In 2018/19 there were 3.75 million second properties – up from 2.68
Rightmove has said it expects the number of sales completed in the first six months of the year and due to be reported by HMRC later this week to beat the previous record of 795,000
The Office for Legal Complaints today published its Annual Report and Accounts for 2020/21 alongside an Annual Review of Complaints. This Annual Report covers the year from April 2020 when the impact of Covid-19 was
The Residential Logbook Association (RLBA) has called on the the Law Commission to recognise Property Logbooks and other data sets, systems and apps used in residential property as a ‘digital assets’ in its current consultation
In the final week of the stamp duty holiday (at the £500,000 threshold) there were over 78,000 property completions, four times the usual volume and the highest levels of demand growth have been experienced by
For a number of weeks, we have been running a Home Buying & Selling Consumer Survey – it can be accessed here: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/howdoweimprovehomemoving and I would urge anyone active in the property market to share
Specialist conveyancer Convey Law has donated £1000 to Bristol Children’s Hospital after its staff joined thousands nationwide dressing up in their wackiest legwear to support Wallace and Gromit’s Wrong Trousers Day. Sporting colourful and outlandish
RVU, owners of Uswitch, Confused.com and Money.co.uk, is taking on the UK mortgages sector by agreeing to acquire Mojo Mortgages. Mojo, based in Manchester, is a free online mortgage broker, delivering personalised mortgage recommendations through
UK Finance today announces that seven mortgage lenders will cover the cost of making existing EWS1 forms publicly available through the Fire Industry Association (FIA) Building Safety Information Portal. EWS1 forms are used for mortgage
Warrington firm FDR Law, has been acquired by the South-East’s Taylor Rose MW Group in a bid to strengthen significant expansion plans in the North-West. The acquisition is the first stage in a strategy that
inCase Legal App received £1.5m private investment in May 2020 and are pleased to announce their first acquisition of the award-winning digital quote generating tool, QuoteXpress. This acquisition is a growth-driven result of inCase improving
Latest findings from the DPO Centre and the Data Protection World Forum (DPWF) UK Data Protection Index show that data retention is now the biggest privacy concern facing organisations in Q2 of this year. The
An employee of estate agency Savills is alleged to have tweeted a racial slur in response to the penalty shootout heartbreak England suffered on Sunday evening in the European Championships Final. On Monday morning images
The Conveyancing Association (CA), the leading trade body for the conveyancing industry, has today (12th July 2021) urged the Government to move ‘further and faster’ in terms of delivering the leasehold reform it has previously
Blockchain technology specialist Coadjute has formally launched in the UK with the aim to provide a real-time network to speed up property transactions. Launching with the first live property deal on the network, a 3-bedroom
Has there ever been a time more fraught with difficulty for your friendly neighbourhood lawyer? KAPOW! Connectivity and technology issues. As the pandemic struck, firms had to adapt speedily to
Leasehold is evolving. We are all watching with interest to see the full impact of the changes proposed by the Law Commission, the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Bill and the recent announcement of the Competition
New research commissioned by the Legal Services Board highlights the importance the public places on lawyers having the right knowledge, up to date skills and attributes to provide good quality legal services. However, the research
Compared to other professional services, the legal sector has historically been a slower adopter of technology, predominantly due to risk-averse practitioners, the partnership and billable hours model – promoting the slow sifting of precedents and
The Legal Services Consumer Panel Tracker Survey reveals a general 4% increase in consumer satisfaction levels in 2021. Despite most legal services currently being provided remotely due to ongoing Covid-19 restrictions, the Legal Services Consumer
tmgroup are pleased to announce that they have today been wholly acquired – for £91.5M – by Dye & Durham, a leading provider of cloud-based software and technology solutions designed to improve efficiency and increase