Conveyancing: Referral deals can limit consumer choice
Last week’s BBC Panorama programme on ‘conditional selling’ by estate agents has prompted the Council for Licensed Conveyancers (CLC) to launch a review of referral arrangements.
Conditional selling – where agents are incentivised to encourage buyers to use in-house services, such as conveyancing – has long been a contentious issue, with personalities like Martin Lewis and Kirstie Allsopp weighing in on it last year.
The payment of referral fees more broadly has long split conveyancers.
In a statement, the CLC said the Panorama programme highlighted serious concerns about conditional selling and the questionable sales tactics of certain estate agencies, which may impact the conveyancing sector by limiting consumer choice of legal advisor.
“This is of concern to the CLC because of the apparent disregard for consumer choice and transparency on pricing affecting conveyancing service provision.
“We have no evidence to suggest that practices as unethical as those highlighted in the programme are prevalent in the sector we regulate, but in the interests of ensuring genuine consumer choice, the CLC is announcing plans to undertake a thematic review focused on referral arrangements.”
The review, beginning in early 2026, will look at the prevalence, value and transparency of referral arrangements “and more broadly at compliance with the CLC’s transparency rules to ensure that the client interest remains paramount”.
Ahead of the review, the regulator “strongly” encouraged all CLC practices, and particularly those that have paid referral arrangements, “to review their compliance with the CLC’s transparency and informed choice rules”.
Meanwhile, mortgage broker Emily Franks has teamed up with trade publication FT Adviser to launch a petition calling for the introduction to estate agent regulation in order to put a stop to conditional selling.
“While estate agents claim conditional selling only happens in isolated incidents, brokers are seeing this practice happen more and more,” according to FT Adviser, which has also created a template letter for brokers to contact their MPs to raise the issue in Parliament. At the time of writing, the petition had 300 signatories.
Separately, the CLC’s quarterly confidence tracker shows that 65% feel confident in the stability of the current market, down from 72% three months ago.
Buyers’ confidence has suffered a similar dip, down from 46% to 38%, according to the 158 respondents, although the largest proportion (45%) said clients were neutral.
The CLC suggested that the stamp duty hike in April may have dampened the mood of the market, but the figures were still higher than in the first survey at the start of the year.
“Experts are predicting that the current slowdown in house prices, coupled with further expected interest rate cuts, will drive confidence levels back up,” it noted.
Most respondents (85%) still did not feel confident that the speed and efficiency of the conveyancing market had improved/was not getting worse.
Stephen Ward, head of strategy and external relations at the CLC, said “It has been a somewhat turbulent first half of the year for the property market, but it is encouraging to see that two-thirds of conveyancers are still confident, and we can hope that will increase over the coming months as the market continues to stabilise following the stamp duty changes.
“What is concerning is the number of respondents who are not confident that the conveyancing process is improving, and I urge them to look at the work of the Home Buying and Selling Council and the Digital Property Market Steering Group.
“There is a genuine commitment and drive to reform the property transfer process because we simply must reduce the number of transactions that fall through and improve speed and certainty for buyers and sellers, through improved data sharing, security and communication.”
A similar message came last week from Nick Hale, chief executive of conveyancing group Movera – which owns ONP Solicitors among others – in the wake of Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ speech last week about changes to mortgage rules to support first-time buyers.
Mr Hale said the measures could help thousands more first-time buyers onto the property ladder.
“Increasing lending above 4.5 times income, expanding products like Nationwide’s ‘Helping Hand’, and making the mortgage guarantee scheme permanent are all designed to stimulate activity at the entry level of the market. The result could be an estimated 36,000 additional transactions in the first year alone.”
He said this was both a welcome boost and “a critical challenge” to the market to adopt digital infrastructure, automation and connected systems.
“This should be the ultimate wake-up call for the industry. More transactions mean more pressure on the people and processes that keep the housing market moving — brokers, conveyancers, and lenders alike.
“Many of these professionals are already working under strain, often relying on outdated, manual systems that cannot scale to meet growing demand. The industry as a whole needs to act.
“This should be the moment we collectively commit to modernising how homes are bought and sold. If we want to deliver on the promise of greater access to homeownership, we need to fix the machinery behind it.”
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