Conveyancing is ‘done to’ consumers, rather than them being active participants in the process, engendering a misunderstanding of the role and importance of conveyancing and leaving home movers frustrated with little recourse to put things right if they go wrong.
The sentiment was shared at the latest Council for Licensed Conveyancers (CLC) roundtable, at which consumer attitudes to home moving was on the agenda. Discussing one of the main reasons for customer complaints, Paula Higgins, founder and chief executive of the HomeOwners Alliance said certainty remained a huge bug bear for home movers.
“People do not really care about conveyancing. They just want to buy and sell houses and that is it. They are quite shocked at how protracted the procedures are when they only go and buy and sell every once in a while.”
For Emma Toms, chief executive of the New Homes Quality Board, consumers did not understand the value of conveyancing either and it would be helpful if this was better explained, especially given that they are often the bearer of bad news. The sentiment was shared by Charlotte Local, legal director of Enact who said consumers often went through ‘a lot of pain before people even get to us… the process of getting an offer accepted on that and finding somewhere to buy can be really challenging. They get to us, and they are already on edge, and then you have to break it to them that they are going to need their lease extending or whatever it might be.
Convoluted and often complicated access to recourse is also an issue added Emma Toms,
“showing what disaster has been avoided could be quite useful to explain… (although) it is very hard to figure out who to go to, who to blame, who to go to for compensation, who can get things put right. You have so many different codes and ombudsmen”.
Noel Hunter, chair of the Consumer Code for Homebuilders, agreed that consumers
“very much feel they are being done to as opposed to doing. This is the largest purchase of a lifetime and access to appropriate information at the time of purchase would help to give more control to the buyer”.
More readily available and up-front information, a key theme in the property sector currently, was very much a positive in the view of the roundtable attendees, but bringing the profession together is proving challenging. Charlotte Local said:
“There have been many valiant efforts to try and get more done upfront, but I think we have about 4,000 firms that practise conveyancing in this country, and trying to get them all aligned and doing the same thing is not easy.”
The success of up-front information also needs buy in from the estate agency sector said Rob Hailstone, Bold Legal Group CEO
“I do not think the consumer would worry too much if it was sold to them in the right way. It might cost you £150 to £200 upfront to instruct your conveyancer, but they would do this, this, and this, and then, when you find a buyer you hit the ground running. You can save two or three weeks or even more.
“But the agents are nervous about recommending that kind of process to their seller client in case they say, ‘We are going to the agent down the road because he is not saying I have to pay £150 or £200 upfront’.”
As has been said many times, up front information is no silver bullet. While many of the moving parts in the home-buying process are not the conveyancers’ fault when they seize up, the profession cannot be absolved of all blame, acknowledged Charlotte Local.
“Cases do turn over so much slower now that conveyancers feel like they need to have a bigger caseload to get the same amount of income. Do you then end up in a vicious cycle where you cannot pay enough attention to the cases? And you are having to do more on the cases too.”
While large operations like Enact do some things quicker than smaller practices, often through the use of technology, “there is only so far that you can take it”, she continued. “I am not convinced that anybody can get particular gains on anybody else because you are always reliant on the next firm.” This might breed apathy among some firms, who are resigned to the fact that transactions are taking longer.
In some cases this apathy is regarded as a mistrust of technology. Rob Hailstone, said “a small rump of firms (are) pushing back against digitisation”, lawyers who feel it “takes away the skill, the knowledge from the job. It possibly threatens their job in the future. They distrust technology, a lot of them”. But for Stephen Ward, the CLC’s director of strategy and communications this was exactly the point – digitisation actually puts the conveyancer back into “the trusted advisor position, rather than de skilling”.
“AI, whether next year or in five years’ time, is going to be doing all of this, all of the data collection and sorting and even the flagging of some of the key points. This will free up the conveyancer to bring their skill and experience to bear on the work done by the machine, really understand the client’s needs, and give the appropriate advice on that basis with empathy.”
Charlotte Local agreed that this fear of dumbing down the conveyancer’s role, or even making it obsolete, was misplaced ‘when you consider all of the elements that a conveyancer has to do.’
Reflecting on the discussion Stephen Ward concluded
“One of the great challenges is ensuring consumers understand the role conveyancers play. Upfront information will help, as they will become involved earlier in the process, and digitisation will assist in a better flow of information, but ultimately there is no silver bullet.
“Everyone involved in the home-buying market has a responsibility to explain the process and manage expectations of understandably anxious clients – it serves nobody to crack up the stress unnecessarily.”
3 responses
Its a pity that the roundtable discussion was not more representative of the legal profession. One of the participants is not even qualified!
On the controversial topic of material information, widespread rejection by solicitors hardly constitutes a ‘success’. The Law Society knows that existing estate agents’ guidance on material information may be unlawful.
On the question of digitalisation again the participants are commenting in a veil of ignorance. The current project may well be heading to the mandatory migration of property deeds executed via a single digital platform.
At one lever mandatory digitalisation raises a host of issues including loss of status for property lawyers, marginalisation, security of sensitive client data, ‘outages’ and privacy.
At a higher level digitalisation being mandated involves the loss of independence as to how property lawyers practise, something contrary to the rule of law.
I do wonder Stephen if you just copy & paste your comment from article to article.
I also wonder if you actually read the detail of the article before you do hit the Ctrl & C buttons….
It isn’t true that Solicitors think that AI or other technology will dumb down their professionalism. The fact is that more technology has clearly helped slow down the property transaction process.
The issue is the lack of qualified conveyancers and no amount of technology will fill that gap. It often feels like technology is heralded as the solution to problems which exist not because of a lack of technology or digitization but for other reasons not being addressed and with which technology cannot help.
I’d much prefer reading that CLC and indeed SRA are to make it compulsory for every person in a consumer facing role to be qualified.
Also, nothing on Standard Enquiries or whether the business model of some large conveyancing businesses delivers an appropriate consumer experience.