Property

Two solicitors have been fined more than £30,000 between them for not considering conflicts of interest and not acting in clients’ best interests.

A solicitor who paid out money he was holding, having given an undertaking not to do so, has been fined a third of his annual income by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

Seven in 10 homeowners were satisfied with their conveyancer but levels of service have deteriorated in the last five years, according to new research.

A leading tax law chambers has failed to convince a tribunal that rooms occupied by barristers are individual properties for the purposes of business rates.

The High Court has refused 14 search providers permission to appeal a ruling dismissing an overcharging claim against the nine English water companies.

A former conveyancer has raised almost £850,000 for a new onboarding tool, including a grant of £292,000 from Innovate UK, which went live in July.

Artificial intelligence is being developed for “triage and work allocation” in law firms and particularly for conveyancing, a director of the SRA has said.

FDR Law, a general practice bought by Taylor Rose in 2021, has been relaunched as a specialist property law firm for self-employed consultants.

Licensed conveyancers will be encouraged by their regulator to move away from the risks of client account as it becomes more practical, an industry roundtable has heard.

The SRA is to examine how family law and landlord and tenant law specialists maintain their competence amid increasing reports about their practices.