Being regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority appears to make legal executives want to switch to a conveyancing and probate regulator, the Law Society Gazette has reported.
In the past 12 months the Council for Licensed Conveyancers have been 112 legal executives convert to CLC regulation – a figure which usually stands at 10.
In the same article, Stephen Ward, the CLC’s director of strategy and external relations, told the Gazette that uncertainty over the future of the regulatory regime for legal executives was “definitely driving” some of the surge.
The CLC announced a new Source of Funds (SOF) and Source of Wealth (SOF) checklist for their members at the end of May. The new guidance provides valuable advice to the conveyancing trade particularly against the backdrop of significant and growing regulatory penalties for failures to perform anti-money laundering (AML) checks.
After the Legal Services Board determined that CILEX had the competence to consider redelegating its regulatory functions, CILEX, the representative body for 20,000 legal executives, met with SRA leaders to transfer negotiations in May.
When the civil conflict between CILEX and CILEx Regulation became known, according to Ward, the CLC began to get inquiries from legal executives. In September, the numbers “really picked up”.
Next week, CILEx Regulation’s board will meet to discuss responses to its recent consultation on improving the current regulatory model, the Gazette said.
The first question of the consultation asked: “Do you consider it to be a priority to change the current regulatory system? Yes/No. Please give reasons for your answers”. Legal executives were also asked about CILEx Regulation becoming more independent from CILEX.
A summary of responses and proposals will be published in July.
