The majority of conveyancers believe their firm tends to reduce prices based on what competitors may charge to at least some extent, thus engaging in a “race to the bottom”, a new survey has found.
Of 70 respondents to a pricing survey conducted by Big Yellow Penguin and Bold Legal Group, 35 said their firm would reduce prices based on their competitors’ prices “to some extent”. Four others said this is a practice their firm would “always” engage in.
A further 10 respondents left comments. One said: “We are mindful of competitor prices when setting prices.” Another said:
“We are always checking what others charge but think we are probably a bit more expensive than others. We don’t though charge what we think the service is worth as this would certainly take us out of the market. People are still looking for cheaper conveyancing even when they have been recommended to us.”
Despite this, the survey also revealed that over half of conveyancers believe their firm’s pricing policy reflects the way they like to do things.
However, one of the foremost issues within firms – reported by some 62% of conveyancers – was a lack of confidence when asking for an increased fee when a matter was progressing. Indeed, under a third of respondents said they felt comfortable dealing with price objections from clients.
Other issues included work-life balance, with 63% of respondents indicating this is something they struggle with. Similarly, 61% reported risk of burnout for some individuals.
Perhaps a contributing factor to this is that just 9% of conveyancers said their firm always prices clients different based on factors such as workload, time pressure, difficulty, ability to delegate, and enjoyment. However, 54% said this is something that their firm practises “to some extent”.
As well as this, nearly half said their firm has a mindset requiring lawyers ot take every piece of work that comes into the department, effectively meaning they are “not allowed to turn work away”.
What’s more, over three quarters of respondents believe their firm acts for clients that should be dismissed as they are too painful or profitable to act for. Reasons why included ethics, reputation, inertia, the SRA, and partners.
Another interesting outcome of the survey was that nearly two thirds of respondents reported not recording their time spent on matters whatsoever, with 24% saying it is “pointless”. Just 15% said they liked it.
2 responses
A simplistic view
Why is Conveyancing so cheap considering all the compliance, the responsibility, title checking, trying to safely negotiate the Building Act, dealing with enormous amounts of phone calls/emails on a daily basis, abuse even, the high risk of money laundering, seller buyer scams, mortgage fraud, source of wealth and source of funds investigations, lenders/HMRC/HMLR all batting the responsibility to the conveyancers. It’s the biggest commitment most people will make in their life time yet people don’t want to pay appropriately and conveyancers are too scared to charge for their worth.
Surely if fees are increased across the conveyancing world it could bring a better work life balance for the fee earners and their staff, a realistic case load, better turn around times, able to offer a fantastic first class service, better mental health for conveyancers, their clients and referrers. Decent profits can be used to invest in the staff, proper training, promotion and pay that reflects their worth.
Dumbing down conveyancing and the race to the bottom is not the answer for the future of conveyancing which has become one of the biggest responsibilities in the legal world. Who wants to be a slave to the stack them high sell them cheap model?
as has been commented above, why do we do this to ourselves?
we as a firm try not to reduce our fees but there’s always someone out there. Willing to not reduce the price.
if you don’t value your time knowledge expertise and effort than why should the client?