The third edition of the British Conveyancing Awards is just around the corner. Alongside a new, larger venue and a new headline sponsor in Groundsure, #BCAwards2023 is all about recognising and rewarding the herculean efforts of conveyancing superheroes who, despite hurdles aplenty, continue to go above and beyond to help clients move into their dream home.
Ahead of the splendour and celebration on the 21st March, Today’s Conveyancer will recognise those who help make the event possible through a series of “Sponsor Spotlight” pieces. Here, we speak with Geodesys, Conveyancing Firm of the Year – Midlands category sponsor.
First of all, tell us who you are and what you do
Geodesys is a leading national supplier of conveyancing searches and producer of the gold standard CON29DW residential and commercial drainage and water reports in the Anglian Water region.
We have over 25 years’ experience in the industry, with some of our team members having been with us since the very beginning!
As well as an end-to-end conveyancing service, we pride ourselves on creating personal relationships with all our customers.
What prompted you to support The British Conveyancing Awards this year?
We are proud to be sponsoring Conveyancing Firm of the Year – Midlands at this year’s awards.
We have watched the event go from strength to strength over the past two years and are delighted to be involved in 2023 to celebrate the fantastic work conveyancers do, often in challenging circumstances.
We can’t wait be there on the night, recognising conveyancers’ hard work over the past 12 months.
Geodesys describe their service as an “end-to-end” offering to facilitate transactions, giving rise to a unique insight across a transaction. What do you see as the biggest change that’s impacted transactions – for better or worse – over recent years?
For us, it continues to be the quality of the data used in search reports. Risk will never NOT be a focus of lenders, conveyancers, and the actual client purchasing the property – and we are pleased to be at the forefront in this area by providing gold standard data within our own CON29DW search report. Backed by membership of The Drainage and Water Seaches Network (DWSN), the Property Ombudsman, and being a founder member of Conveyancing Information Executive (CIE), this all lends itself to us maintaining those high data standards.
The challenges of the past few years – lockdowns, working from home, financial issues across the UK and the pressures caused by all these elements – not forgetting the SDLT holiday – mean it’s been a rough ride for most people in the industry. Throughout it all, we are proud to have maintained our high standards, offering conveyancing clients all the help they need and deserve.
Contrarily, what do you see as the biggest development to transactions over the rest of 2023 and beyond?
There are a few things that currently stand out – the increase in the use of a Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN) throughout a transaction is a positive, despite potentially being viewed as trivial. Can you imagine the car industry without Car Registration numbers? It is time we adopted that one thread of truth that everyone can use, end to end.
“Property Passports,” or a similar record of the history and data around a property, could also hugely benefit the industry. It will be interesting to see what this would look like and mean for conveyancers if completed in the next couple of years.
How are Geodesys innovating and evolving their services to ensure they keep “conveyancing covered” in light of the above?
We try and blend technical innovation with product innovation (our Award Winning “New Build Drainage and Water” search product is still going strong), and – perhaps most importantly of all – exemplary customer service levels.
Our Account Managers know our clients personally and interact with them most days while our “concierge” service has proved especially popular recently when the pressure on time and workloads has been high for conveyancers.
We try to do what we can to take the pressure off and support the industry in the best way possible.
I just added this as it felt like the answer ended abruptly. feel free to take it out though!
