Ken Weetch, the former Labour MP for Ipswich who campaigned for the establishment of a conveyancing service to be performed by non-solicitors, has died aged 92.
A decade before the Administration of Justice Act 1985 established the legal framework for non-solicitors to provide conveyancing services, Weetch introduced a bill to amend the Solicitors Act 1974 and end “the monopoly power” given to solicitors in conveyancing matters.
In a House of Commons debate on 24 February 1974, Weetch said “there was a need for fundamental reform” in the provision of conveyancing services.
The monopoly, Weetch said, provided “a featherbed of such comfort that it has prevented any significant improvement in the reform of the conveyancing framework”.
Weetch’s bill proposed enabling those other than solicitors, barristers and notaries public to conveyance residential property registered by the Land Registry “under certain safeguards”.
He told the House:
“In removing registered land from the monopoly – which is what I seek to do in the Bill – I am able to anticipate the argument that conveyancing is far too esoteric a matter for ordinary mortals, however intelligent, to understand and to put into operation. There may, indeed, be difficult questions with unregistered land with an abstract of title, but having been provided with a system of registration to make things simpler, I am suggesting that advantage should be taken of it by the consumer.”
He continued:
“This would be in the interests of consumer freedom, lower prices and structural reform, because the present stifling restrictive practice should die, and when it does, there will be few mourners at its funeral.”
In a second debate two days later, Weetch introduced the Conveyancers (Homes For The People) Bill, which sought to establish a new conveyancing service under a conveyancers council, “with appropriate powers and duties, for the reduction of charges and delays in such matters, and for other purposes.”
Highlighting the solicitors fees for residential conveyancing which he said amounted to “social extortion”, Weetch said he had been given a bill for a “straightforward transaction”, with a charge of £158 for selling a £13,500 property. Today, the equivalent fee would be £1,242 for a property sold for £106,187.
Weetch told the House:
“What the Bill purports to do, in short, is this: it seeks to extend the class of persons who can conveyance for fee or gain. In particular it seeks to re-establish the professional conveyancers who are specialists in this area. I say “re-establish” because professional conveyancers used to exist until they were legislatively strangled in the dark.”
Although neither bill was successful, the Administration of Justice Act 1985 implemented many of the provisions Weetch had campaigned for.
As a passionate advocate for conveyancing reform, Weetch also opposed the restriction of limiting the earnings of fees or commissions by conveyancers “from estate agency, mortgage or insurance broking”.
In July 1985, Weetch defended the right of the consumer to choose an in-house conveyancing specialist, and predicted the emergence of large firms in the market in response to demand.
In a Commons debate on restricting conflicts of interest in conveyancing, Weetch said:
“If a firm of estate agents has an in-house department of licensed conveyancers, I do not see why the consumer should be prevented from using the agency. I should like him to have the option of a licensed conveyancer working for someone else or on his own account. The consumer should have access to a solicitor if that is what he wants. He should have access to the conveyancing department of a major bank if that is his wish. In other words, he should have all the options before him.
“The choice should extend beyond outlet to structure. The consumer should have the choice of a small firm, a medium-sized firm with corporate status or a large-scale approach. He should be able to choose between a number of individual specialists working on their own and an in-house conveyancing service. The pattern of consumer demand to emerge will be for the market place to decide.”
He continued:
“If the conveyancing market demands that large firms emerge, they will emerge. If that is the structure that the consumer and the market place want, that is what will happen. Passing this new clause will not stop it because it will be an organic function.”
A member of the House of Commons from 10 October 1974 to 11 June 1987, Weetch campaigned for tighter controls on mortgage fraud after losing his seat.
He died at the age of 92 on 5 February 2026.
Image credit: Ipswich Labour Party
2 responses
Very few “straightforward transactions” now.
Ken Weekch was a passionate believer in consumerism but sadly with the benefit of hindsight completed misguided.