Property

Employment and commercial work are seeing the biggest increases in demand from clients, research has found. However, lockdown has had a “devastating impact” on other practice areas.

The property logbook is the next initiative to be investigated as part of work to speed up the home-moving process, although lockdown has hit other projects.

Speeding up the process of property buying and selling has taken on new urgency following the conveyancing market meltdown due to Covid-19.

Consumers are more worried about the fee conveyancers charge to transfer their money than the risk of it being stolen, research has found at the same time that a solicitor is jailed for fraud.

Five bodies representing conveyancers have joined forces to issue detailed guidance to support the re-opening of the housing market while complying with social distancing.

It is difficult to imagine a “more obvious breach of duty” by a conveyancing solicitor than failing to register its new owner, the High Court has said in a case where it had “disastrous consequences”.

Conveyancers and other property stakeholders have called on Chancellor Rishi Sunak to allow them to move staff in and out of furlough on a weekly basis as the home-moving market recovers.

Conveyancers, estate agents and others involved in the home-moving process can return to work today in line with social distancing advice, the government announced last night.

Ground-breaking conveyancing law firm Muve has completed a £1.1m equity funding round, despite the property market grinding to a halt during the Covid-19 crisis.

Profits at NAHL plc – the company that owns National Accident Helpline – tumbled by nearly 80% in 2019 as it emerged it is testing whether to start handling conveyancing matters itself.