Property

A law firm which acted for both sides in a property transaction without obtaining their consent has been rebuked by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

The government needs to step in to mandate reforms that promise to revolutionise the home buying and selling process, while conveyancing fees have risen, a roundtable has heard.

More than half of conveyancing firms (57%) lack “digital maturity”, a report has found, with one in five firms (22%) not accepting electronic signatures.

A solicitor who gave 115 clients the wrong advice about the ground rent provisions in the leases of properties they were buying – because of an incorrect precedent – has been fined £15,000.

One of the country’s largest conveyancing firms, O’Neill Patient, has “changed direction” and put acquisitions on hold in the wake of the pandemic and conveyancing boom.

The first ever automated remortgage has been completed by a new system that also picks out those remortgage matters that require legal advice.

Property Exchange Australia (PEXA), which processes 80% of conveyancing completions in Australia, is to acquire specialist property law firm Optima Legal from listed company Capita.

Up to seven out of ten updates to the land register will be automated by March 2025, HM Land Registry has predicted, as it pledged to promote “a secure and inclusive digital system of conveyancing”.

The number of active conveyancing firms has begun to shrink again after last year’s boom, with the biggest practices increasing their market share, new research has found.

There is a “growing body of opinion” that conveyancers have a duty of care to advise clients on the risks climate change represents to property, it was claimed today.