Property

The last strict requirement to print and sign a paper document in a property transaction was removed today as HM Land Registry began accepting ‘witnessed electronic signatures’.

There are still too many paper-based processes in conveyancing and consumers will no longer tolerate it in the wake of Covid-19, the chairman of HM Land Registry has argued.

A voluntary cross-industry agreement to improve the home-buying process – including earlier instructions to conveyancers – is being mooted.

Consolidation at the top end of the conveyancing market is speeding up after Simplify announced the acquisition of a leading London and South East firm, the second private equity-backed deal this week.

NAHL plc has seen a modest recovery since lockdown restrictions eased but personal injury and conveyancing work is still at 50% of pre-Covid levels.

A rapidly expanding alternative business structure which combines conveyancing and mortgage advice is expecting a record month as the property market roars back.

Security experts have highlighted email interception as the “weakest link” in firms’ defences against cybercrime in the property market.

Leading conveyancing firm O’Neill Patient – which was last year bought by a private equity firm – has acquired Cavendish Legal Group, the first of what it says will be “a number of acquisitions”.

A solicitor who failed to advise on the “obvious risks” of four off-plan property development schemes has been fined £10,000. His advice was “so inadequate as to be incompetent”.

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”.