A drop in the number of conveyancers practising in England and Wales highlights the need to make the profession “more sustainable and respected”, a law firm says.
The latest Law Society figures reveal the number of working conveyancers fell by 15% from just over 13,000 in September 2021 to 11,140 in January 2025.
RG Law says as firms face growing workloads, increasing regulation and pressure to complete transactions faster and at a lower cost, better support needs to be given to upcoming conveyancers.
Compliance, risk management and regulatory work takes an estimated 30% to 40% more time than a decade ago, the firm said, with clients also expecting more frequent updates, quicker transactions and greater accessibility.
Karen Marsh, sales and marketing director at RG Law, said: “Conveyancing has increasingly been treated as a process that clients and estate agents simply have to go through, with little appreciation for the work required to progress a transaction safely to completion.
“Conveyancers are under constant pressure from multiple directions. Clients want to move, estate agents are pushing for exchange and completion dates, and referrers often have their own expectations. However, legal work cannot be rushed without increasing risk.
“Many talented conveyancers feel overwhelmed by growing workloads, increasing compliance requirements and unrealistic expectations. Some are leaving the profession, while others are moving into auditing, training, compliance or consultancy roles.”
The firm suggests support for professionals such as workload monitoring, training, wellbeing initiatives, professional development and technology that reduces unnecessary administration, such as customer-service support and online tracking systems.
Marsh continued: “Estate agents and conveyancers need to deliver a consistent message from the outset. When clients understand the likely timescale and the factors that can affect it, they have greater confidence in the process.
“I often use the analogy of taking a car for an MOT. If the garage discovers that the tyres are bald, most people will not expect the garage to replace them for free. The issue could not have been identified until the vehicle was inspected.
“Clients are not paying for problems to be created; they are paying for problems to be identified, managed and resolved so they can make an informed decision about one of the largest financial commitments of their lives.”
RG Law says an industry focused on price and volume risks “undermining professional pride and making it harder to retain experienced conveyancers”. Some professionals are moving into non-client-facing roles, while others are becoming self-employed consultants to gain greater flexibility.
The firm believes others must offer competitive salaries, meaningful career progression and recognition for high performance to retain existing expertise and attract new talent.
5 responses
Firstly conveyancing is a profession not an industry. The incorrect use of that word in itself is something which undermines the able, experienced professional conveyancers that remain in the profession.
As conveyancing moves on still with no leadership and unelected “collectives” trying to muscle in on territory for their own selfish reasons, is it no surprise we become frustrated at what we see. Toxic postings on social media from people who should be nowhere near allowed to run conveyancing firms, trolling from people outside the profession trying to tell us what to do whilst they say what they like, and regulators who know nothing about conveyancing and allow their members to bring the profession into disrepute on a daily basis without censure. They are just some of the issues, for once one would wish a serious conveyancing publication would actually investigate just how frustrating it is to be an experienced professional these days and watching Rome burn all around us.
Will the last good conveyancer to leave the profession as a result of all the carnage please remember to turn out the light?
As a very traditional high street conveyancer I fully agree with Professional Conveyancer
I would add that the sooner the regulators ban the anti competitive practice of referral fee’s the better. May then estate agents will then begin the respect us rather that thinking they can drive a transaction by bully conveyancers
In addition when will the regulators wake up to the dangers of private equity swallowing up good long established practices
There are three actions that will fix the problem and make the profession reputable but surprisingly no one in either CLC or SRA talks about it
1. Ban referral fees
2. Introduce minimal legal fees – for example firms can’t charge less than £1600 legal fee for sale and less than £1900 for purchase (it may be tiered based on sale price etc etc.)
3. The file can’t be ran solely by a paralegal, paralegal can assist a Licensed Conveyancer, CILEX or Solicitor but can’t run their own cases on their own
(4. CLC/SRA Please Stop adding additional burdens for Gods sake, more risk assessments, more AML, more data protection more this more that more more more………………..)
Trust me it will also be a lot more efficient and economically viable for regulators to introduce the changes than having to deal with hundreds of interventions every week.
As simple as that, voila
I certainly don’t want to get into a debate on here, but owning both a panel management business and a Conveyancing business, there are some very interesting and some very disturbing comments made so far. I’m not writing this comment in order to fight any of you, as i strongly agree with some of the views made, but i’m also disappointed to read some of the other comments.
However, I would like to ask, have you always been an experienced professional, or did you have to learn your trade? And was the conveyancing sector the same back then as it today? I’m going to take an educated guess at No being the answer to both.
If you are doing your bit to bring through the next generation of conveyancing professionals, then i commend you because here lies the problem and i’m pretty sure that our views are aligned on this. Too many good and experienced conveyancers have left the industry, especially since the Pandemic. This is undoubtedly due to the additional pressures that are put on the sector today compared to even just 15 years ago. And at a time when our clients demand so much more today than even 5 years ago.
What I absolutely agree with is that there are too many legal firms doing conveyancing work too cheaply in todays climate and all it does is exaggerate the problems.
I don’t agree with banning referral fees for the simple reason it will destroy some of the largest conveyancing practices currently operating, leaving a huge capacity issue for the remaining conveyancing businesses. We saw the issues that the stamp duty holidays caused and trust me, it would be far worse than that.
However, i do believe that the regulators should be looking to cap referral fees, as we have way too many situations where you have the ‘tail wagging the dog’ and it simply leaves the conveyancer being unable to do their jobs as they are constantly being chased for updates by such ‘tails’ wanting the matters completing asap for their fees.
I can demonstrate for years that i have been wanting conveyancing legal fees to increase. Pay the conveyancer more, reduce down their case loads and you will instantly start to see a reduction in completion times. Additionally by reducing down the case loads, you will automatically give the conveyancer more time to actually do their job, which in turn will reduce down the amount of chasing by the clients, estate agents or mortgage brokers, as the conveyancer will be on top of their work. The additional benefit of this is that it will also free up more time for one of the most important parts of a conveyancers job – training!
I’m sure none of you were ever thrown in at the deep end and told to just get on with it.
For me, everything goes round and round and comes back to the same thing. Charge more and everybody wins as you will have happier staff, happier clients, happier introducers, faster completion times and fewer fall throughs. But please ensure that when charging more, it doesn’t go straight into the pockets of the shareholders, it is spent on building the next generation of conveyancing professionals
1. Referral fee: this causes conveyancers to decrease their own fees and hoard clients by paying high referral which in turn creates immense workload. This is the cause for less pay for more work leading to frustration for conveyancing professionals.
2. First point of client contact
In a property transaction conveyancing professionals need to be the first point of client contact. At present estate agent and mortgage brokers control client flow which leads to undermining of conveyancing professionals for obvious reasons.
3. Employed conveyancing professionals need to be capped the number of files they are given to handle by the SRA. Overloading of files is also a major concern. Self employed conveyacing professionals need to be provided with a fair fee split with the firm. At least 70% fee in favour of the self employed not below. Some self employed firms provide very low fee split such as only 40% of fee to the professionals whereas 60% fee is kept by the firm. SRA should ensure fair split.
4.Compliances, regulatory, lender requirements and client expectations with advent of AI are increasing daily.
You are welcome to add to the list.