From next week, Priscilla Sinder, founder of the Property Conveyancing Consultancy and PCC Education Hub, and Maria Hardy, company trainer and technical specialist at the hub, will be sharing weekly insight and advice related to post-completion. Today’s Conveyancer spoke to the experienced conveyancers to find out why they want to bring about a culture shift in the attitudes towards this essential part of the conveyancing process.
Before forming specialist post-completion service Property Conveyancing Consultancy (PCC) in 2017, Priscilla Sinder worked her way through the ranks as a practising conveyancer. After qualifying as a solicitor in 2005 she joined a private London practice and became manager of residential conveyancing and head of post-completion, before being made partner. A move to a large national conveyancing firm as a director followed.
In each of these roles, Sinder noticed post-completion was treated almost as an afterthought. Inexperienced, often unqualified, staff were allocated the tasks in the post-billing period, resulting in mistakes that would inevitably end up back on the desk of the fee-earning conveyancer.
The impact of inaction
The first of Maria Hardy’s two decades in residential conveyancing was spent working in professional negligence, where she saw first-hand the impact of not giving post-completion the attention it required. Before becoming head of post-completion and compliance for a large residential conveyancing firm, Hardy spent her days dealing with the insurance claims and litigation that arose as a result of post-completion mistakes.
When Sinder and Hardy met on social media two years ago, they quickly realised their opinions of post-completion were very much aligned. With Hardy’s experience in risk and compliance and Sinder’s established consultancy, it seemed a natural progression to extend the offering to include education and training.
The result was PCC Education Hub, which offers education and training in post-completion for conveyancers. The hub offers [83comprehensive courses in post-completion topics, as well as compliance and mentoring services.
A new mindset
But while their combined career-long experience enabled them to identify a gap in the training market, Sinder and Hardy believe the lack of attention to post-completion requires a major culture shift to bring about change that will benefit the conveyancing sector.
“We need a change in mindset, away from the view that post-completion is ‘just administration’ – it really isn’t,” Sinder says.
“And if the mindset changes it will help the whole ecosystem of conveyancing. Issues with post-completion can lead to litigation and insurance claims, which lead to increased premiums, and have an impact on the reputation of the firm.
“Now that HMLR is publishing requisition data, this is going to massively expose firms that are really failing, which will have an impact on customers deciding whether they want to instruct that firm. Everyone wants to get their rates down, but if the post-completion teams aren’t experienced, they won’t be able to. A lack of education means requisition rates will always be high.”
False economies
Sinder, who qualified in 2005 and Hardy, who graduated in 2004, say they have always been aware that post-completion suffers from a lack of attention. But when the Legal Services Act opened the legal services market to non-lawyers in 2007, the issues became more widespread, they say.
“In came tech people, business people,” Sinder explains. “Your traditional lawyer now has to compete with this, and they may be the best solicitors but now they have to match the business skills of business people, which is something not necessarily taught at Law school.
“The dynamics of a conveyancing department or firm changed quite rapidly when these new entrants came into the market. They saw what they thought were efficiencies equated to cheaper offerings. But it’s a false economy.
“When you have people who don’t have the relevant experience dealing with post-completion, the issues start building up and they get transferred back to the fee earner. The system gets clogged up, the complaints start coming in, the reputation gets damaged.”
AI isn’t the answer
The sector-wide drive towards digitalisation is often touted as the answer to reducing requisitions, eliminating mistakes and keeping costs to a minimum. But Hardy and Sinder believe the rush to implement AI is putting the cart before the horse.
“With AI, what you put in is reflected in your output,” Sinder says. “Yes you can get it to help with small tasks, absolutely, but any business owner who looks at AI and thinks all their post-completion issues are resolved… I don’t think that’s the attitude to have.
“You can’t transform digitally until you know what the problem is that needs to be solved, and that can only come from education. Yes AI will help streamline your business but you have to understand what you need it to do – the knowledge has to be there to begin with.”
Hardy agrees. “The systems that are in place at the moment can pick up a name discrepancy, for example,” she explains. “But what happens next? Was it a simple typing error? Do you need a marriage certificate? Or a change of name deed?”
Educate to eradicate
“There are so many issues we see on a daily basis it’s hard to quantify them. Yes, tech can pick up admin errors, but it can’t identify whether there’s a restriction on the property that the post-completion process hasn’t dealt with adequately. Does it need to be complied with, removed, overreached?
“Has the property been sold under a court order, and is it sufficient to get the transaction registered? Knowing there’s a mistake is a small part of the problem – knowing how to deal with the mistake is what’s important.”
Bringing about a shift in attitude towards post-completion requires a change in basic legal education, Sinder suggests, with the topic embedded in land law modules and covered in the legal practice course.
Hardy agrees. “We need to educate the legal profession to the importance of post-completion and make sure teams are trained to deal with the issues that arise, otherwise mistakes will keep happening.
“If we can change the mindset, we can reduce the errors, which will reduce the workload and the costs. Clients will be happy, lenders will be more secure, and law firms will see the difference in their profits.”
Next Tuesday, the PCC team will explore the issues around notices. If you have a notice-related question you’d like Priscilla and Maria to answer, email press@todaysconveyancer.co.uk by 5pm on Thursday 5 February.
About the authors
Priscilla Sinder qualified as a solicitor in 2005 and began her career in private practice. She moved into an in-house role soon after qualification and was appointed as manager of residential conveyancing and then head of post-completion. With the diverse experience obtained she gained a role as a partner of a boutique property firm in central London, leading to her final role as a practicing solicitor in a large nationwide conveyancing firm as a director. Throughout her career she always noticed post-completion departments lacked resources and the attention they deserved. In a bid to change this, the seed for PCC was planted in 2017 where Priscilla embarked on a journey to change the way post-completion was viewed by the industry. This then gave rise to the birth of the Hub in 2024. Priscilla is also the author of Client Care in Conveyancing and co-author of Post-completion: A Conveyancer’s Guide to Process, Risk and Compliance, 1st Edition, published by the Law Society.
Maria Hardy is the company trainer and technical specialist at the PCC Education Hub. She has 20 years’ experience in the residential conveyancing profession, the majority of which has been spent focusing on post-completion duties. Maria started her career in 2005 after completing her LLB at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. Prior to working at the hub, her early career was spent working in professional negligence, and from 2014 to 2023 Maria was head of post-completion and the compliance officer for a large residential conveyancing firm. She then became manager at PCC from 2023 – 2024. Maria’s vast experience allows her to specialise in post-completion, risk, compliance and training.
