Property

Seven in 10 law firms fined for anti-money laundering breaches in recent months have Conveyancing Quality Scheme accreditation, raising serious questions about how it is checked and enforced.

A partner at DWF has been fined £14,000 for wrongly approving £2.2m in payments to a developer which later went bust, leaving the firm to recompense out-of-pocket buyers.

A locum solicitor whose timesheets claimed for the same time from two different firms – while employed full-time at a third – has been struck off.

The “punitive” fining regime for anti-money laundering rule breaches operated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority has left lawyers feeling “fearful”.

HM Land Registry is to publish data this autumn showing the number of avoidable requisitions it has to raise with every conveyancing firm.

Conveyancing fees hit an “all-time high” in the first quarter of this year in the run-up to the stamp duty deadline, with the average figure up by almost 12% on the same period last year.

Solicitors should advise clients in property transactions on the potential liability they face from “climate risks”, the Law Society has said in new guidance.

The withdrawal of the material information guidance for estate agents was met last week with a mixture of confusion, alarm and celebration by lawyers.

A law firm that paid out £750,000 to a buyer client over an error on a property transaction has taken assignment of its claim against the seller.

A long-serving property solicitor who defrauded a Hereford law firm out of £160,000 by diverting disbursement payments into her own bank account has been jailed for 30 months.

A negligence claim against a well-known London law firm over erroneous information it gave to a client’s mortgage lender has been dismissed on the basis of causation.

A law firm owner has been suspended for not disclosing conflicts of interest to clients, including that his wife was a director of the property development company they were buying from.

The First-tier Tribunal has upheld an £8,400 fine imposed on a law firm for not belonging to a client money protection scheme while collecting rent for properties owned by clients.

A law firm that promises home movers “fast conveyancing” has told Legal Futures that it meets its targets for accelerated exchanges 80% of the time.

A solicitor who paid away proceeds of a property sale in breach of an undertaking and then loaned the client the money to make up the shortfall, has been fined for misconduct.