Conveyancers have their own roles to play in making conveyancing more efficient and professional and reducing simple errors which cost the profession millions of pounds each year.
Society of Licensed Conveyancers (SLC) Chair Simon Law has published a statement supporting the Council for Licensed Conveyancers (CLC) findings in its latest Risk Agenda that post completion work is not being processed properly and promptly; adding if conveyancers took more time and attention in their submissions, the number of requisitions would be significantly reduced.
A blog published on the HMLR website in October suggested requisitions could be costing conveyancers as much as £19m every year and while the agency acknowledged it still has work to do themselves, conveyancing errors were ‘a significant contributing factor’ adding on average 15 working days to the time it takes for transaction to be registered.
‘This is not another bash the conveyancer article’ said Law, who, in addition to the statement, which has published on the SLC website and is reproduced in full below, goes on to say
‘It is important that we as conveyancers recognise that there is always room to improve how we process post completion work and give this important aspect of our work the attention and resource that it deserves. It is not about diverting attention away from the issues that HMLR has with registration backlogs but drawing attention that we all have a role to play in making conveyancing more efficient and professional’.
SLC Chairperson Simon Law statement on Land Registry Requisition issue
It is always cheaper to do the job right first time
The Council for Licensed Conveyancers has recently outlined its growing concern that post-completion work is not being completed properly and promptly. It has outlined this risk in its 2024 Risk Agenda.
The Society of Licensed Conveyancers (SLC), is broadly supportive of these statements; simple mistakes in land registration applications should not continually be made. There will, of course, always be an element of human error, however many errors can be identified by a quick review of the application prior to submission. Every simple error will require re-work, resulting in both lost revenue – “Dead Money” for the conveyancer – and wasted time for fee earners or post-completion staff. Conveyancers routinely use checklists and review their files prior to exchange and completion, however it would appear that this same level of due diligence is not being applied post completion.
Those simple administration mistakes add up. In the last 12 months, HM Land Registry (HMLR) asked conveyancers for clarification due to variations of names in submitted applications for registration 114,000 times. That is 2.3% of all register change applications they received in that time.
HMLR economists identified the costs for conveyancers in providing the accurate information after a mistake is found in a simple register update application as between £5 and £30 each time, which when multiplied across the industry and added together cost us between £3.2 million and £19.1 million. In terms of time, these errors add on average 15 working days delay to the transaction being on the register, until the customer is happy and we as conveyancers can close the file and say, “job done”.
This is not another bash the conveyancer article, we need to recognise that we can reduce these simple administrative mistakes easily, simply by adjusting our focus to checking the information with reliable sources like the HMLR register and checking that the names match in all documents. That is exactly what caseworkers at HMLR will do. So, let’s do it right before submission and save money and time.
We all have processes and checklists in our firms that can reduce errors, save money, and provide a better service to the customer, but it sometimes just requires a few extra minutes – simply asking someone in the office to check an application for variations in name, that there are no missing documents or pages, and that handwriting on witness details is readable. It all makes a big a difference. As many a teacher has said before “more haste, less speed,” and as annoying as it might be to hear, it is true. A couple of extra minutes really will make a difference and save time and money for both conveyancers and HMLR.
HMLR have tools like a guide to reducing requisitions, checklists and webinars, both save time and money for conveyancers. They recently launched a Top Ten Tips campaign with videos designed to help. They are slick, to the point and a great aid to someone new to the profession or for a quick refresh over a coffee.
Every action taken to speed up the process and make conveyancing faster and easier must be a good thing. These actions will also help HMLR; simple administrative requisitions take case workers away from dealing with more complex titles.
Yes, there are bigger programmes and projects that will save us time and money. However sometimes a small application check could also save time and money for the industry and make the service we all want faster. Haven’t we all got the time to do that?
