Interview with new CILEx Chief Exec Mandie Lavin
The Chartered Institute of Legal Executives (CILEx) has announced that Mandie Lavin is to be appointed as its new Chief Executive, taking over the post on January 1 2015 upon the retirement of Diane Burleigh OBE. In her first interview about her appointment at CILEx, Miss Lavin, currently director of regulation at the General Optical […]
Employment fraud on the rise
Employment application fraud made up over half of all confirmed frauds recorded to the UK’s fraud prevention service (CIFAS) in the first half of 2014. Job applicants making serious false declarations about anything from employment history and qualifications to criminal records made up 63 per cent of fraud reported to the service. The most common […]
SortRefer bolsters growing business
Online conveyancing portal SortRefer, winner of two industry awards this year for its intermediary conveyancing work, has bolstered its team with the appointment of Annabel Halhead as operations manager. Annabel has spent the last nine years working as operations manager for one of the UK’s largest event management agencies, Zibrant, where she managed over 30 […]
Pickles reveals house building projects to get funding boost
Eric Pickles has announced the first wave of projects that will benefit from a £1 billion scheme to accelerate the provision of over 200,000 new homes across the country. The Communities Secretary published a shortlist of 36 large-scale housing projects in line to receive a share of £850 million of funding to kickstart housebuilding. The […]
Today's Conveyancer Topic of the Month
As the 30th September approaches and firms are thinking about renewal of their Professional Indemnity Insurance we at St Giles are often asked what firms can do to save time in completion of their proposal form and improve their profile. It goes without saying that firms who do low risk work and have no claims […]
Council of Licensed Conveyancers approves appointment of Head of Legal Practice at TCS
Following approval from the Council of Licensed Conveyancers (CLC), TCS has announced a major internal appointment with John Jones appointed as Head of Legal Practice. John joined TCS in October 2013 as Compliance Director and was appointed Head of Legal Practice on the 8th July 2014, pending approval from the CLC. He qualified in 1987 […]
DC Law launches training academy to increase conveyancers in the property market
The DC Law Training Academy has been launched by the conveyancing arm of Move with Us to tackle the shortage of conveyancers in the current market which is leading to delays in the house moving process. The academy, which started recruiting in June 2014 is training people who are looking to enter the profession […]
The Real Estate Symposium Dinner on target for 2015 election
Few events have as great an effect on the homebuying public as a general election and with the next one just around the corner this year’s Real Estate Symposium Dinner, facilitated by Search Acumen, will be focussing on what the outcome could mean for property professionals. Whilst some choose to concentrate on the here and […]
Preparing for the PII renewal season – use Lawyer Checker
The deadline for renewing Professional Indemnity Insurance is looming for law firms and naturally the premiums associated with this insurance are a great concern for most law firms, and in particular smaller law firms. Payments for insurance can constitute one of the largest costs to a business aside from salaries. Add to this the fact […]
CLC warn Conveyancers of Bogus Firms
The Conveyancing body CLC have sent a warning to Conveyancers regarding the increase of bogus offices set up to clone legal practices, ultimately to steal mortgage loans and client information. Conveyancers were warned not only to be aware of other law firms being cloned, but also of the risk of it happening to them. Fraudsters […]
Searches UK’s Electronic Verification – the way forward for identity checks
Searches UK recognise the difficulties firms can be faced with when conducting identity checks on their clients. That’s why we recommend saving time and money by using our AML electronic identity check to ease the process for your firm and your clients. Customer Due Diligence is required by the Money Laundering Regulations 2007 to help […]
CLP Holding Company Ltd v Singh & Anor [2014] EWCA Civ 1103 (31 July 2014)
We welcome again Anis Waiz, solicitor and head of commercial litigation at Curtis Law Solicitors, as he continues his critical review of current case law. The key issue before the Court of Appeal was whether the defendants were liable to pay VAT to the claimant on a property transaction in which the claimant agreed to […]
Conveyancing Association respond to Bank of England Inflation Report
The Bank of England has released their quarterly Inflation Report revealing that interest rates are unlikely to rise in the remainder of 2014, however will increase gradually over the next few years. Eddie Goldsmith, Chairman of the Conveyancing Association has commented on the Report in response to the interest rate announcements: “The announcement today suggests […]
OneSearch Direct Welcomes Lenders’ Approvals of Search Code Regulated Searches
OneSearch Direct, the largest local authority data search company in the UK, has today welcomed the decision by Lloyds Banking Group to recommend legal conveyancing professionals use firms subscribed to the Search Code, regulated by the Property Codes Compliance Board (PCCB), when undertaking personal searches relating to property purchases. “The property search market is a […]
100 Miles, 100 Years, 1 Day – PSG set off on a journey to Remember
PSG, the quality provider of conveyancing searches and reports for solicitors and conveyancing professionals throughout England and Wales, are delighted to announce their annual charity fundraising event on the 13th September, which will be in aid of the Royal British Legion. 100 Years To mark the start of the UKs special 4 year centenary period, […]
BBC highlights devastating reality of vendor conveyancer fraud.
The BBC last night chose to air their consumer programme Fake Britain once again during prime time. The episode previously shown back in May highlighted the ease with which criminals can steal the identity of solicitors and law firms. It is believed that there are at least 1400 criminal gangs trying to steal mortgage advances. […]
The gap between lenders and conveyancers on Data Protection.
Finally the ICO has issued a warning to lawyers relating to their observance or failure to observe Data Protection Legislation. In my opinion, it is something that has been a long time coming – due to the lack of basic observance of the obligations by many lawyers. So with a warning issued last week, it […]
Land Registry moves to GOV.UK on 20th of August
The Land Registry will soon be moving its website content over to GOV.UK. On the 20th of August we can expect the existing Land Registry website to be switched off. From this date, GOV.UK will store all the information and relevant data from the current Land Registry website. Up until the 19th of August, […]
Highest house sales for seven years
House sales have recovered to their highest level since the financial crisis, a new report suggests. An annual average price increase of 9.9 per cent, or 4.6 per cent when London and the South East are excluded, was revealed in the latest LSL house price index. The average house price climbed by 0.6 per […]
Ipswich Building Society teams up with LMS
The Ipswich Building Society has partnered with LMS, the conveyancing panel management specialist. This further strengthens LMS’ commitment and connection to the building society sector. Ipswich Building Society offers lending across the Eastern Region for direct applicants and across the country to brokers based in the East of England. It has a range of mortgage […]