Other lawyers

One of the ‘big five’ conveyancing law firms is aiming for more market share and remortgage work as part of efforts to steady its struggling parent company.

When small businesses believe they can trust the transparency of legal providers on fees, they are twice as likely to seek the advice of lawyers, according to the Legal Services Board.

The Intellectual Property Regulation Board has unveiled Lord Smith of Finsbury – better known as the former Labour cabinet minister Chris Smith – as its new chair.

The Financial Conduct Authority will have the power to cap the fees of personal injury CMCs, although there is currently no need, says the Treasury.

The Legal Services Board is to impose reform that will end the “different treatment” for accountancy regulators which also oversee legal services.

Four managers of an unregulated company that offered legal services have been convicted of defrauding clients and unlawfully providing immigration advice.

The accountancy regulator has decided not to force its firms that provide reserved probate services to publish their fees – unlike the legal regulators.

Claims management companies are moving into property related complaints as the surge in holiday sickness claims has been brought under control.

Regulators must tighten their rules on training and supervision of unqualified immigration advisers, a major report has recommended. It also called for limits on the introduction of virtual trials.

A leading claims management company fined £533,000 for multiple rule breaches – including its sales agents calling banks pretending to be customers – has lost an appeal against the sanction. The tribunal heard the call of an employee telling his grandmother that the CMC had changed its working practices for a regulatory audit.

The Council for Licensed Conveyancers has become the first regulator to announce what service standards and prices it will mandate the firms it regulates to publish online. It is also encouraging its firms to go beyond the minimum regulatory requirements and use the transparency drive to differentiate themselves better and attract clients.

A payment processor has taken the place of conveyancers in handling the finances on completion day in what has been claimed to be the UK’s first fully digital mortgage settlement. It could spell the end to clients waiting with the removal van in the afternoon for money to be transferred between lawyers.

The Notaries Society is calling on the profession’s regulator, the Faculty Office of the Archbishop of Canterbury, to abandon its oversight of the “extremely high risk” activities of probate and conveyancing given the cost needed to do it properly. The society said its ruling council decided last month with “a degree of reluctance” to call for the pull-out.

The government yesterday got its way with the form of the cold-calling ban that will be imposed on claims management companies and said it would be backed up by hefty fines on anyone who uses illegally obtained data.

Activity by claims management companies in the area of holiday sickness is “much reduced”, the regulator has claimed. The Claims Management Regulator said it made the finding after completing an “intensive audit” and investigation.