Property

The housing minister has written to local authorities whose delays in returning searches are putting conveyancers under pressure ahead of the stamp duty holiday deadline on 31 March.

The body that represents property search companies has written to conveyancers’ representatives to set out ground rules for using search insurance at a time when councils are struggling to deliver.

Leading conveyancing firm O’Neill Patient – which was last year bought by a private equity firm – has spent £27m to buy a platform providing services to mortgage brokers and estate agents.

Dubious investment schemes involving solicitors are becoming “far more sophisticated” and leading to a “huge number of claims” on the Compensation Fund, the SRA has warned.

A solicitor whose conduct of several property transactions has triggered multi-million-pound negligence claims against his former firm has now been struck off.

Transparency over referral fees in conveyancing work will drive out bad practice, a government official said yesterday, while also calling for greater consistency in how law firms publish their prices.

A “reckless” solicitor who admitted registering properties with the wrong purchase price and failing to carry out anti-money laundering checks has agreed to leave the profession.

The longstanding principle of caveat emptor could be displaced by vendor disclosure because of the rapid adoption of technology due to lockdown, experts have suggested.

A leading firm of conveyancers is to start telling new clients from next week that their transactions are unlikely to be completed by the end of the stamp duty holiday.

Negligent conveyancers should not be able to avoid liability because it emerges later that their client was engaged in mortgage fraud, the Supreme Court has ruled.