There has been a significant increase in the number of property searches being submitted ‘out of hours’ by conveyancers.
The extreme challenges and difficulties of coronavirus has impacted greatly on the conveyancing industry causing the profession immense pressure and stress. UK’s largest provider of legal due diligence for commercial and residential property transactions, Searchflow, and exclusive risk management solution provider, Lawyer Checker have both seen first-hand the impact on the sector.
Searchflow’s data reveals a huge rise in searches being ordered outside ‘normal working hours’ and Lawyer Checker’s data is showing the same story, as the industry struggles to keep up with demand and clients wanting to take advantage of the SDLT holiday before it ends on 31st March 2021.
The results indicate the sector is working around the clock, 24 hours a day in order to manage increased market demand and clients’ expectations.
Searchflow’s data below shows not only have volumes sky rocketed but the ‘out of hours’ ordering is increasing too. Tracy Burtwell from Searchflow feels employers may have needed to be more flexible to accommodate people initially working from home, with the first lockdown, conveyancers having to deal with child care issues and more recently the sheer volume of searches that need to be put through.
Searchflow stats
Tracy Burtwell, Sales Director at Searchflow said:
“I think that a real positive of the last few months is that we have all proven that working from home can be just as productive if not more productive for some activities as being in the office. Certainly in Lockdown one, where flexibility in normal hours was needed to accommodate childcare as many of us became part time teachers, we found a real rise in number of out of hours orders being processed with Searchflow through our website. More latterly this has increased further, potentially as a result of the increased volumes due the Stamp duty relief. We recognise, that having an agile approach to match customers requirements is not just something we need right now as the new norm may eventually just become the norm. We have also adopted this approach for onboarding of many new customers, offering out of hours training sessions to have a minimal disruption on workloads.”
Whilst best known for its innovative conveyancing risk tool Account & Entity Screen, which verifies the legitimacy of the firm on the other side of the transaction, Lawyer Checker has also revealed there own data showing a big increase in the number of searches being ordered outside ‘normal working hours’ when comparing the beginning of the year, pre-Covid, to October this year.
Lawyer Checker stats
Tom Lyes, Key Relationship Manager at Lawyer Checker commented on the data:
“We have seen a 154% increase in the number of searches being ordered out of hours when comparing January 2020 to October 2020. Since October we’ve seen thousands of searches ordered out of business hours fluctuating from as early 1:47am and as late as 11:56pm. This is one of the unfortunate consequences of the current market. The welfare and wellbeing of conveyancers who are working weekends, long hours and giving up their family time must be a high priority for leaders of law firms right now. There needs to be empathy and understanding amongst the home moving supply chain and right now more than the ever the ability of conveyancers to support each other will be key to getting through this tough period.”
