Hailstone: Call for conveyancers to set up local groups
A group of conveyancers have joined forces with the head of the Bold Legal Group to create a new initiative aimed at solving practical issues that “clog” the conveyancing process.
The Conveyancing Improvement Collective (CIC) was launched with two initial objectives: to reduce the number of unnecessary enquiries that are raised during conveyancing transactions, and to resolve the confusion around mortgage protection clauses.
More such issues are being identified.
Rob Hailstone, chief executive of the Bold Legal Group, said: “We are, at the moment, a small group of conveyancers who want to help resolve some of the issues that make the conveyancing process more complicated and stressful than it needs to be, by tackling the day-to-day issues that slow the whole process down.
“We are not trying to boil the ocean in one go, but just pick off one issue after another slowly, but surely.”
The CIC’s other founder members are Birmingham sole practitioner Sarah Dwight, who is also co-chair of the Law Society’s conveyancing and land law committee; licensed conveyancer Marc Lansdell, managing director at Evolve Law in Milton Keynes; Nicola Maskell, a senior solicitor at London-headquartered Bishopsgate Law; Ed Percival, a licensed conveyancer and director of compliance and operations at London and Norwich firm Leadenhall Law Group; and Vicki Redman, head of learning, quality and compliance at Swiitch, Shoosmiths’ conveyancing arm.
The group has identified that property transactions across England and Wales are being slowed down by too many unnecessary enquiries relating to documents that are publicly available online, or to questions that have already been answered in the TA transaction forms.
The CIC said the delays frustrated sellers and buyers and made conveyancers and the conveyancing process look disjointed.
Mr Hailstone said: “The number of enquiries raised in a conveyancing transaction should reflect the property and the title, not habit, not template forms or a lack of confidence in the process.
“The scale of the inconsistency is striking. It was recently reported that a contract pack was sent out to a firm acting for a potential buyer, whereupon six additional enquiries were raised.
“When that sale aborted, for non-legal reasons, the same pack was sent to another firm, but an astonishing 46 additional enquiries were raised. Same property. Same pack. Entirely different approach.”
With mortgagee protection clauses, the CIC said there was confusion and a lack of consistency amongst lenders over what information was required on leases.
“When a leasehold property is being purchased with a mortgage, conveyancers are increasingly running into a wall of inconsistency.
“Some lenders will not proceed unless the lease includes a mortgagee protection clause. Others require a deed of variation. Others place the burden squarely on the conveyancer to make a judgement call. And some will consider an indemnity policy.
“The result is delays, aborted transactions and conveyancers caught in the middle – trying to satisfy requirements that differ from lender to lender, and that in many cases have no clear legal foundation. We think it’s time for a universal approach.”
The new initiative comes at a time when the government has published its roadmap for major reform of the home-buying process, with a promise to “simplify” conveyancing.
Mr Hailstone is calling on solicitors and conveyancers to get involved with CIC in their local areas.
He said: “I am not naïve enough to think that a small group [like us] can help resolve the challenges that conveyancers currently face.
“That is why I want to encourage people to form their own local conveyancing collectives, ‘satellite collectives’, that can feed back to us problems, ideas and solutions which we will then share and raise with the relevant powers that be: lenders, regulators, insurers, brokers, agents and surveyors.
“I want all conveyancers from all types of different firms, small to large, to be able to have their say. I’m reminded of the words of the 19th Century Anglican clergyman Sydney Smith, who said it is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do a little. We can’t do this alone, but if we all do a little, we can do this together.”
CIC launches officially on 1 August.
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