Conveyancing group Simplify has confirmed a redundancy process is underway in response to a “widely reported significant slowdown in the housing market”.
Simplify consists of nine conveyancing businesses, six of which are amongst the largest of their kind in the UK. Names of firms include Cook Taylor Woodhouse, MyHomeMove, Gordon Brown Law, and Premier Property Lawyers.
A spokesperson for the group – which describes itself as “the UK’s leading independent conveyancing and property services group” – told the Law Society Gazette:
“In the context of a widely reported significant slowdown in the housing market, which is expected to continue next year, we have sadly needed to put a number of roles within central, support, and management teams at risk of redundancy. We will be supporting those colleagues, whose roles are at risk, through the consultation process over the coming weeks.
While we can’t comment on specific numbers, firms or timings during the consultation process, those at risk of redundancy represent less than 5% of the total workforce and not all firms are impacted.”
This comes just over a year after the widely reported outage that affected the group at the end of 2021 following a “significant cyber security breach”.
