Property

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”.

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.

The furlough scheme should be extended for property businesses, like conveyancers, where income required to pay staff will not be available for months after work is undertaken once lockdown is lifted.