The Law Society of England & Wales published the practice note ‘Climate Change and Property’ on 12th May 2025. This practice note follows from initial guidance ‘The Impact of Climate Change on Solicitors’ which was published on 19th April 2023.
The practice note represents the Law Society’s view of good practice, in relation to climate change risks for property transactions.
As the data standards authority for the conveyancing industry representing over 80% of the environmental reporting market, the Conveyancing Information Executive (CIE) welcomes any advancement in guidance designed to consider environmental risks more fully.
From our position representing the major data suppliers in the conveyancing industry, there are some key facts and headlines which we would like to address:
- The practice note is the Law Society’s view of good practice, it is not a compliance note and it is not legal advice. The legal status of the practice note is available to review here
- The practice note is not a mandate or explicit instruction that conveyancers must commission a standalone climate change search or an environmental search which includes climate risks, this remains optional
- The list of physical climate change risks within the practice note are examples of physical impacts that might affect transactions. They are not a prescriptive list of the risks that must be included in a search
In light of this, the practice note represents an opportunity for law firms to review their current reporting practices relating to climate change risks, but not a requirement to. Indeed, it will be ‘business as usual’ for large parts of the conveyancing industry who currently either include climate change risks already within their environmental reports supplied by CIE members, or who have made the decision to exclude climate change risks from their scope of works and client retainers.
The only existing compliance requirement surrounding climate change in the conveyancing industry (to date) relates to the climate risk report providers. This is the CIE ‘Compliance Note: Climate Change’ which specifies the market leading standards to which climate change risk information provided by its members must meet. This guidance was released in January 2023 and ensures users of CIE kitemarked reports are receiving the highest standards of climate change data and insight.
The CIE Compliance Note also extends beyond just data requirements; it specifies what support is required from the environmental report supplier more holistically. This support is critical given the growing complexities of climate change reporting.
Our members must provide competent in-house support to any risks conveyed in climate risk(s) reporting and be on hand to support customers in accordance with service level agreements via members of their in-house teams. This in-house service and consultancy support is critical, as our members have objectively selected and curated the data upon which they deliver their insight and support.
If you have any questions or concerns around what this latest publication means for you, please do not hesitate to reach out to us at: info@conveyinfoexec.com
3 responses
The CIE is entitled to defend its position. However, as a lawyer with actual environmental law experience, I find the weight given to ‘climate change reports’ deeply concerning.
The jurisprudential burden placed on property lawyers is massive. Encouraging property lawyers to participate even at the most rudimentary level is frankly absurd.
Hi Stephen, if lawyers are already commissioning a search either a stand alone climate report, or an enviro which includes a climate module, and reporting the results back to the client, in the same way they would with other search results, then there is nothing additional they are required to.
The CIE’s statement is welcome, but ultimately falls short far of what the conveyancing profession requires.
It notably omits any commitment to review or update its 2023 climate guidance in light of the Law Society’s May 2025 Practice Note — a surprising omission given the pace of change in this area. Surely this is an oversight?
Furthermore, the statement reads as a defence of existing climate search products rather than a constructive contribution to evolving professional standards to align more with the long list of physical and climate risks of concern and flagged in the Practice Note.
For the CIE to support the profession credibly, it must engage more directly with legal and regulatory risk relating to climate searches. A PN is a statement of good practice – to reinterpret it (as the CIE does) as a mere opportunity for conveyancers rather than a compliance requirement is disingenuous to say the least. We all know where a breach of a PN might lead – and it is anything but an opportunity!