Ombudsman to reduce time limit for complaints
The Legal Ombudsman has launched a consultation on proposals to reduce the timeframe in which clients can make complaints about solicitors. Currently complaints are permitted within six years of a mistake, or within three years of discovering a problem that may require investigation. Under new proposals these timeframes would be reduced to just one year. […]
“Runaway” house prices risk overtaking Help to Buy ISA limits
Experts now fear that “runaway” house prices are overtaking Help to Buy ISA limits, leaving many buyers unable to proceed. September figures show that the average price of a property bought through the Help to Buy ISA scheme was £175,680, compared to an average first-time buyer house price of £225,607 and a national average house […]
Law Society: the SRA must not ditch SIF
In a rare move, the Law Society has united with the Legal Services Consumer Panel (LSCP) to oppose plans by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) to close the Solicitors Indemnity Fund (SIF), a step which would see consumer protection weakened. The SRA wants to close SIF, effectively ending long-term protection for consumers, with nothing to […]
Conveyancing’s information problem: “legislation must be the end goal”
When it comes to improving the home buying and selling process, momentum gained has to be momentum sustained, and the recent White Paper on Levelling Up appears to provide the industry with the opportunity to maintain our momentum. However, at the same time, it needs full transparency on what is required. For instance, the Levelling […]
Closure of the Solicitors Indemnity Fund
I have previously written in Today’s Conveyancer about the SRA’s proposed closure of the Solicitors Indemnity Fund. If the SRA are not persuaded of the need to retain SIF, then it will close in September 2022. The SRA’s consultation period on the closure of SIF ends on 15th February. It is crucial therefore that as […]
What your clients want
Every year, client research is conducted by the Law Firm Marketing Club to help law firm partners and marketers understand how clients decide who to engage. Clients compare Before asking how clients like to interact with firms, we asked a scene-setting question: what could law firms do to make it easy for you to find […]
SRA Survey: is legal technology appropriate for the general public?
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) would like to understand your views on the acceptability of legal technology (lawtech) for the general public in its latest survey. This survey is aimed at lawyers who work directly for individual clients and SMEs, and is being conducted in parallel with a survey aimed at consumers. It is being […]
Equity Release Council introduces penalty-free repayments on lifetime mortgages
Guaranteed right to make partial repayments on new lifetime mortgages marks 30 years of consumer standards for the equity release sector. New equity release customers will be able to mitigate the costs of borrowing in later life through a new product safeguard announced by the Equity Release Council (the Council), the representative industry body. From […]
Lawyer Checker reveals 27% increase in conveyancing scam alerts
Leading cyber security experts from Lawyer Checker, a Dye & Durham Solution, have called for vigilance following a dramatic rise in cyber security scam alerts of almost a third in the past year. Following in-depth analysis of SRA scam alerts, the company reveals that there has been a 27% increase in fraudulent activity over the […]
Mortgage trends and interest rates – what could happen in 2022?
Since the Bank of England raised the interest rate last week to 0.25% from an all-time low of 0.1%, industry commentary around 2022 mortgage trends continues to gather pace. Despite the emergence of the Omicron variant, which has caused concern in financial markets across the world, and the re-imposing of restrictions and travel bans, […]
Property market stabilising but stock remains low
HMRC’s November transaction figures indicate a return to stability for property sales, but stock levels remain low. Figures show that the provisional non-seasonally adjusted estimate for November 2021 sales transactions is 104,980, 13.4% lower than November 2020 and 22.7% higher than October 2021. After a significant decrease was observed for residential transactions completed in October […]
‘Twas the night before Christmas… Diary of a High Street Conveyancer
‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all over the land conveyancers closed laptops, turned off the broadband a large sigh of relief , looking forward to some fun one year is over, and a hard job well done. It started last year with Covid 19 the first full lockdown the country had seen but […]
2021 to become busiest property market for 14 years
New research from property website Zoopla indicates that this year’s property market is set to become the busiest for 14 years. Data shows that one in 16 homes will change hands by the end of the year. Zoopla’s prediction that 2021 would be the UK’s busiest year for property transactions since 2007 is thought to […]
Property market is “unsustainable” says industry chief
NAEA Propertymark has issued its October Housing Report, prompting fears that the market is “unsustainable“. The latest report shows that the number of available properties per branch has decreased from 23 in September to 21, now the lowest figure on record and 46% lower than in October 2020. But the number of buyers registered per […]
2021 property law update: A free CPD webinar from Stewart Title & Ian Quayle
Anyone working in property will know that 2021 has been an exceptionally busy year for conveyancers but it has also been another bumper year for property legislation and caselaw. “With so many important changes and proposals affecting conveyancing, we thought it was the perfect time to ask well respected speaker Ian Quayle to look at […]
Convey Law donates vital funds to UK charities carrying out vital work overseas
Leading charity-fundraising conveyancing practice Convey Law has donated £3000 to help a Pakistani village complete a vital water filtration project meaning they have clean water for the very first time. The company has also donated funds to other UK-based charities undertaking work internationally. The Humanitarian Group Pakistan, which took on the crucial project, was nominated […]
Are we ready to adopt UPRNs?
Unique property reference numbers (UPRNs) have the potential to be a game changing innovation in the property sector according to the Conveyancing Information Executive, and partners including Ordnance Survey, major search providers Groundsure and Landmark, and property and addressing data providers Land Data and GeoPlace. A roundtable hosted at the Ordnance Survey Head Offices in […]
Diary of a High Street Conveyancer; 29th November 2021
There are those times when a client calls … “Hello, you may not remember me but you acted when I bought my house four years ago. I wonder if you could just witness my signature on a document.” Those words ‘just”… although actually the entire phrase ‘just witness my signature on a document’ leads to […]