Conveyancers Need to Work Less and Earn More!

We keep telling ourselves as Conveyancers and business leaders that our Conveyancers need to do less – with additional work through conveyancing creep a significant issue – and our Conveyancers need to be paid more for their invaluable work. So, what’s the problem – how do we pay more and do less – provide a better and faster conveyancing service and look after the wellbeing of our most valued professionals?

The answer is very simple, we need to charge more and do less so that we can pay more and look after our Clients and our Conveyancers properly. Most Conveyancers are stuck in a fixed fee mindset and have forgotten how to fee earn effectively. Conveyancing practices simply do not place enough emphasis on making sure that their Conveyancers charge appropriately for their time on work that is clearly outside of the original retainer. The result is that the legal practice needs to do more work to ensure profitability and the Conveyancers struggle with too many cases.

Anyone working on a fixed fee basis is going to struggle to make ends meet. It is incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to gauge the work involved in a conveyancing transaction without sight of the contract pack. Most if not all introducers of conveyancing work have a list of additional charges that their Panel Lawyers can charge for if required.

e all have a responsibility to ensure that we charge sufficiently for the work we do, so that we can provide a great service and look after everyone that we work with. Perhaps we need guidelines on what minimum conveyancing fees should be from our Regulators, which would certainly help to stop the drive to the bottom for certain conveyancing practices and the industry, especially during lean times

Over the course of the last two years, we have trained our Conveyancers to fee earn appropriately and the result has been startling for our business. We have been able to reduce workload capacities to one of the lowest in the industry, whilst conveyancer wages and bonus payments are now very much the most competitive in the UK. We have also been able to look at how we work, with our Conveyancers working with an Assistant to help with the administrative and client service elements of the job, as opposed to asking too much of our Conveyancers and the excellent case management system that we use. The resulting client service benefits have been startling and award winning.

We need to look at the most effective way to work, ensure good training, manage capacities, time and resource effectively and charge appropriately to look after our most important resource – our work colleagues.

 

Janine Wellington is Legal Director at Convey Law

4 responses

  1. What Conveyancers everywhere seem to either not understand or simply refuse to discuss;

    1) Supply and Demand
    First driver of rates. If the demand isn’t there then there is only ruthless competition.

    2) Public perception is the first driver of the value of any paid for service. There’s a reason conveyancing is at the bottom of the legal pyramid (and within the housing market broadly with all stakeholders) in terms of earnings and respect. Let’s face it, conveyancing is now below the slip’n’trip ambulance chasers in terms of public respect.

    When will you all have an honest debate about how you got there? Engaging with those outside looking in, who can give you the hard truth.

    3) The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result each time.

    The poor performance of your corner of the sector was a topic of discussion a decade ago. The poor performance was prevalent then, prevalent through the covid boom and equally prevalent now.

    Years and years of making the process miserable for clients has led to widespread impression, and observation that it is conveyancing that makes the home moving/ selling&purchasing process miserable.

    Broadly you’re the lowest paid part of the process. Lower than EA’s, lower than Surveyors, lower than Professional Movers.

    You’ve done it to yourselves. There’s too many factions, it’s too loosely regulated and too easily are clients files/processes being handed to idiots, with clients suffering emotionally as a result.

    These constant ‘charge more’ calls to action are woefully ignorant of the reasons why you are where you are.

    Until a strong, honest conversation is had about how you got here, you’ll never change it.

    And, believe it or not, I am all for you earning more. Only however once your side has got it’s s11it together and stopped ruining the process for the public, EA’s and moving firms.

    1. Something of a rant Matt?! The legal element of transacting a property is a complex process undertaken by highly proficient and professional individuals working in the best interests of their clients – not the Estate Agent.
      A well balanced article with some good points for legal practice leaders to take forward.

    2. Blimey that rant was so offensive on so many levels. Why should Conveyancers engage with agents when that is what they think?

  2. Could not agree more – going back for years now I have limited the number of transactions I would take on as a fee earner and remind clients they are paying for a Platinum service i.e. they get through to ME, not to an assistant or support staff and if for some reason I am not available (i.e. on another call or in with another client) then they would get a return call from ME as soon as possible.
    A great reputation takes years to build but can be lost in seconds – stick to your guns, don’t take on more than you and your team can cope with and be upfront with clients, prompt and responsive, as well as clear as crystal. If they are being too demanding for the fee payable, be prompt about pointing it out politely and say that you will have to increase your fee as the number of emails or phone calls is going above what you would have included in your quote for.

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