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Burning platform

Want to fix conveyancing? We need a burning platform

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Date03 Nov 2022
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When Boris Johnson made his early return from holiday to rescue the country from itself, there were interesting parallels with those trying to rescue the conveyancing process from itself. The argument for those supporting Boris’ attempt to stand for prime minister was simple.  He’d got them elected before, so was the best person to do it again. However, the problem was more complex; the party’s credibility was being undermined and the infighting meant Conservative’s chances of winning the next election were slim.  Those that thought this magic bullet of parachuting Boris back into his previous role share the same characteristics...
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confessions of a cyber conveyancer

17. Confessions of a cyber conveyancer

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Date03 Nov 2022
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Inefficient. Opaque. Lack of transparency. Just a few of the more polite words that people use to describe the conveyancing industry today.  It’s not particularly constructive to dwell on the other less polite words, but as the owner of a law firm that exploits technology, I like to think this gives us an edge when it comes to sharing information. For example, last year we introduced our Enquiry Explorer which is designed to reduce the stress involved with the Black Hole of Conveyancing – pre-contract enquiries.  Despite the concept being pretty simple, we’re seeing little evidence of other firms copying...
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thepartnershiplawyers

16. Confessions of a cyber conveyancer

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Date10 Oct 2022
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Last Friday, I’d closed the office at 1.00pm because (a) it was Friday and (b) I had a round of golf to get in.  I can do this because (a) we don’t care about our clients and (b) we are fundamentally bone-idle. It’s at this point that it dawned on me that this article is destined for a lawyers’ publication rather than a wider audience, so I have to reassure readers that none of the last paragraph was true, apart from it being Friday.  It had just gone five thirty, and I was experiencing the simple pleasure of sitting outside...
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the partnership lawyers

15. Confessions of a cyber conveyancer

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Date10 Oct 2022
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The other evening, I was settling down to watch the latest Ridley Scott blockbuster based loosely on reforming the Home Buying and Selling Process, (quite a niche Netflix channel I admit) when my phone pinged with an email. I tore myself away from the on-screen action and read a pretty vindictive message about us on social media, making all sorts of libellous allegations about our thieving, fundamental ineptness. I figured I’d let it pass, I mean – welcome to Conveyancing 2022 – this goes with the territory. A few minutes later I got a notification from our client portal. Same...
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the partnership limited

14. Confessions of a cyber conveyancer

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Date10 Oct 2022
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Ever felt that you can get a bit carried away with your own successes? Like when you close a new instruction without actually quoting the fee, and you start thinking, “heck, I’ll do this EVERY time”. Within a few days, you don’t even bother talking to prospects but send them paperwork automatically. Then the complaints start rolling in about high-pressure selling and you have the awful recognition that maybe you took a wrong turn somewhere. Last week, we had a similar situation with our move to the cloud – we got a bit carried away and things went awfully pear-shaped,...
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the partnership lawyers

Sex, drugs and panel lawyers

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Date10 Oct 2022
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Recent research revealed that the two most popular reasons for men to visit Amsterdam is the red-light district (“De Wallen”) and the freedom to take recreational drugs. Although that statistic was obviously made up, it sounds perfectly reasonable – both are obvious attractions, although for the sake of this article, let’s gloss over the whole drugs thing. For anyone who hasn’t been there, the Amsterdam red-light district revolves around the concept of putting women on show behind windows for men to select like lobsters in a restaurant’s tank, which by any measure is an abhorrent practice. However, what is equally...
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The Partnership

Conveyancing is not fit for purpose – we must blame someone

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Date10 Oct 2022
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Have you noticed that right now, more than ever, it seems that we all need someone to blame? Cost of living crisis? World economic events. Descent into moral bankruptcy? Boris Johnson. House buying and selling? Conveyancers. Obviously. When the mainstream media runs stories on their front pages with claims that, like Boris, it’s “broken … not fit for purpose” you know the mood music is changing. However, the question should be, IS the process broken and if so what aspect and is it possible to fix it? “Communication, communication, communication” The main culprits seem to be poor communication, third party...
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boiling ocean

Boiling the ocean – solving the conveyancing conundrum

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Date14 Jul 2022
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After last month’s piece about the myths of conveyancing, a reader posted the message, “that’s all good, but how do we fix it?” This constructive feedback made a pleasant change and was just one of many other comments which were definitely more considered and polite than we’d usually see after an article about the house buying and selling process. Generally, it degenerates into comments about “lazy and ineffectual lawyers and a broken system” that we need to replace wholesale.  Which frankly doesn’t help anyone or offer constructive suggestions as to how we fix this unholy mess we’ve got ourselves into. Given...
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confessions of a conveyancer

13. Confessions of a cyber conveyancer

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Date14 Jul 2022
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When you run a business that is completely reliant on technology, you’d like to think you’ve got the whole thing nailed down. Stuff like hot stand-by boxes, redundant disks, uninterruptable power supplies (UPS), cloud-based infrastructure – it’s second nature, right? For those “just in case” moments. So there I was on Monday, looking forward to the week with a spring in my step and excitement rising over instructions, exchanges, and completions when my colleague took a call from our London office. “There’s been a power cut and now we don’t have any internet.” “There is no panic at The Partnership”...
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Ready to Exchange– and other conveyancing myths

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Date10 Jun 2022
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You probably won’t be aware of it, but February 28th 2018 was a sad day in television history.  It was the last airing of a fantastic show called Mythbusters, which set out to prove or disprove popular myths through the use of scientific investigation and analysis. The programme shone a light on beliefs that had been around for years but which no one had ever bothered to question before.  Like whether the Great Wall of China is the only man-made structure that can be seen from space. When it comes to myths, if you spend time on social media you’ll...
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12. Confessions of a cyber conveyancer

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Date10 Jun 2022
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Every now and again you get a brilliant idea.  When it happens, like your birthday – you feel uniquely special for the rest of the day. You implement it and for a week or so you bask in the glow of your own assumed brilliance. Then it just becomes part of the day job and you realise that it was actually pretty mundane and you wonder why you made all the irritating fuss about it. I experienced this recently but because it involved technology, there was naturally a good lesson to be learned. One lawyer’s complaint is another’s idea Many...
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11. Confessions of a cyber conveyancer

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Date10 Jun 2022
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There I was, last Wednesday, minding my own business, catching up on the latest instalment of the Wagather Christie court case, when my phone rang.  That would mean only one of two things.  Either it would be a client wanting to discuss why their case was taking so long, or a colleague asking me to call a client to discuss why their case was taking so long. Only this time it wasn’t. It was my colleague who explained that a client had complained that they’d submitted a question through our Enquiry Explorer on our portal but it hadn’t saved correctly. ...
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10. Confessions of a cyber conveyancer

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Date10 Jun 2022
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We’d grown tired of sitting around eating bonbons and were looking for something else to do to pass the time.  We knew there were personalised Cadbury’s Dairy Milk bars in the locked marketing room, but we couldn’t bring ourselves to steal them. Then one of our lawyers stopped by and interrupted our afternoon quiet time, with, what turned out to be, quite a tricky question. “How do we help our clients and agents know what’s going on with their case, because whatever we’re doing, clearly it’s not working anymore”. Which frankly made us feel a little hard-done-by because we send...
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heaven help us

“If this is the new normal, heaven help us”

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Date26 Apr 2022
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These days, it seems everything needs a phrase.  Ideally of three words. At least, that’s what it seems when you look at the utterances from 10 Downing Street – who can forget “Build Back Better” or “Hands Face Space”. When it comes to the home buying and selling process, “The New Normal” seems popular and if this is the case, we’re in a whole heap of trouble. We had a few spare minutes when we weren’t sitting around eating bonbons, so we looked at how long deals were taking since the end of the Stamp Duty holiday in October when...
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Web-based, cloud

9. Confessions of a cyber conveyancer

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Date26 Apr 2022
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So there we were, sitting around, eating bonbons, adding features to our case management system and generally feeling pretty confident with how we were leading the way in conveyancing technology. When suddenly, last Tuesday, a message popped up at the bottom of the browser on our screens. Can’t remember the words exactly, but roughly translated it said; “Sort yourselves out.  We’ve been threatening this for years. From June you won’t be able to use your case management system.  Lots of love, Satya”. This caught our attention, so we put down our coffee, took our feet off our desks and had...
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administrative tasks

8. Confessions of a cyber conveyancer

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Date04 Apr 2022
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It’s tough being a thorn in people’s sides. administrative tasks I bleat on about using the latest technology while traditional lawyers disagree with me; “We don’t need technology” they cry, “we need better lawyers”. I tell them to take a long hard look in the mirror and realise that they must adapt to change. I then go about my day with the smug satisfaction that we would always be ahead of the technology curve. Heaven forbid that we would not make decisions and adapt to change. Physician heal thyself So here’s the thing. We work with Infotrack, who, in our...
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slow conveyancing

Fed up with slow conveyancing? Careful what you wish for

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Date25 Mar 2022
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No-one needs a customer survey to learn that people find moving house stressful. However, as I’ve said before, no amount of Rimmell Angel Shimmer Peach Pie #531 lipstick is going to give the conveyancing pig “the London look”. The scale of the challenge is huge and unfortunately, the primary solution of getting information upfront, is, to quote Boris, “a bit like bringing a peashooter to a gunfight.” As well as being underwhelming in scope, it introduces the potential of unintended consequences. Like in 1996 when AOL’s profanity filter blocked all users from Scunthorpe. Solving the shortcomings of the conveyancing process,...
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Ideas list

7. Confessions of a cyber conveyancer

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Date21 Feb 2022
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You never stop learning. Oh, and making mistakes. Especially when you’re running a technology-led organisation like The Partnership, when things are always changing as you adapt to new requirements. I know I’ve been banging on for months about our migration to the cloud and its positive impact.  Well, most of that positivity comes from me with my new-found ability to sleep through the night without waking up in a cold sweat about the threat of ransomware. However, this week I’ve learned that not everyone here shares my unbridled joy. Turns out it created a bit of a pain for most...
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Servers

6. Confessions of a cyber conveyancer

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Date10 Feb 2022
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Since starting The Partnership, I had always been comforted by the reassuring whirring coming from the dark and chilly cupboard which housed our servers. This was the beating heart of the business and, given my paranoid fear of hackers, we stored every single byte of data we had ever created behind that locked door. This meant we had over 40 trillion of those bytes sitting there, and we guarded them with our lives. Every now and again, I would pop my head around the door of the room and gaze lovingly at the cupboard that housed those precious machines. Sadly,...
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Conveyancing process

And did those feet, in ancient time

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Date10 Feb 2022
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If we ignore conventional wisdom and believe Boris, it looks like we’re in the end-game of the pandemic. Looking back over the past two years, social media has been buzzing with claims about the revolution it has brought to every aspect of our lives. Even the house buying and selling process. Apparently, conveyancers have been storming the barricades in a way that would put Les Miserables’ Jean Valjean to shame. The changes have been seismic; –           Electronic signatures on deeds –           Identity checks on mobile phones Sadly, the revolution petered out at this point and it was time to take...
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Enquiries

5. Confessions of a cyber conveyancer

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Date25 Jan 2022
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In the light of recent scares about the use of technology, while others grab their pitchforks to protect their Sacred Paper, I knew that to offer more innovation, I had to take a punt. Enquiries After all, I didn’t know if something was going to work unless I tried it. I’d learned from the best – Microsoft’s first couple of versions of their products are never exactly barnstormers.  It normally takes the third attempt when it would actually work.  You really didn’t want to use versions 1 or 2 of Windows, Word, Excel, or Powerpoint. We’d always stored as much...
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Cyber security and risk reduction

4. Confessions of a cyber conveyancer

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Date21 Jan 2022
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With the new year well and truly behind us, I find us once more back to the subject that has been haunting law firms across the country for the last few months. Risk With dependence on technology only going one way and that’s UP, we’ve been obsessing over whether we’re taking enough steps to protect our business against the numerous threats waged against us on a daily basis. And we’re not talking about disgruntled clients here. Like all law firms, my number one worry is how to reduce risk, both in our cases but also our operations.  As we’re 100%...
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power failures

3. Confessions of a cyber conveyancer

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Date23 Dec 2021
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As we were getting into the last days before Christmas, deals were starting to unwind and exchanges were picking up. Confidence was rising that we’d finally get some transactions through before everything closed. power failures We even decided to treat ourselves to some mince pies for the office. Things were looking up and people were starting to relax when we heard an unfamiliar and rather ominous beep coming from the hallway. And then just like that, everything went dark. Don’t panic Mr Mainwaring When you rely 100% on technology, a power failure does put a bit of a crimp on...
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power failures

2. Confessions of a cyber conveyancer

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Date22 Dec 2021
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As I mentioned in my last piece, a couple of weeks ago we moved all our documents to the cloud. It was an altogether more positive and friendly cloud than the one we had been sitting under, Eeyore-like, worrying about the devastating impact of a ransomware attack. Although successful, we had to make some difficult choices, which I thought might be interesting to share, especially, after a discussion I had with a supplier this week. The supplier had asked why law firms aren’t moving away from email, even though they know it’s the main source of ransomware attacks.  We decided...
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Two, four, six, eight, regulate, regulate

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Date22 Dec 2021
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As a student of the 1980’s I spent a lot of time protesting on London’s streets.  It didn’t matter if it was against apartheid, student loan cuts or the Milk Snatcher in chief, Margaret Thatcher, there were always chants that went with these rowdy gatherings. Two, four, six, eight, regulate, regulate Whether it was “Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, Out, Out, Out” or “No ifs, no buts, stop the education cuts”, the best were simple and easy to remember. Those fond memories came back to me when recently reading the chants of “Regulate, Regulate, Regulate” from those demanding change to the house...
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power failures

1. Confessions of a cyber conveyancer

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Date06 Dec 2021
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As the last few weeks have highlighted the impact that technology has in conveyancing, I thought it might be interesting to share the trials and tribulations of a law firm that has bet its existence on the stuff.  I wanted to share some of my own insight into a fast-moving world where we face daily challenges in using technology effectively and reducing risk. And boy sometimes it is painful. First things first. I’m not a born and bred conveyancer. My background is in software and my law firm develops our own conveyancing case management software. I can confirm that no...
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Clapping hands

Let’s not forget to give conveyancers the clap

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Date22 Nov 2021
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At the start of October, for just a couple of days, something very strange happened. Everywhere you went on social media, lawyers were receiving praise. “Thank you for your hard work … heroes – every one of you … amazing support”. Someone even suggested a campaign to give conveyancers the clap like the NHS back in March last year. Although I might have misinterpreted what they actually meant ( some confusion between STD and SDLT? )  it did bring back memories of a population standing on doorsteps banging pots and pans in recognition of the NHS.  Now, after a derisory...
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computer security

What did computers ever do for us?

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Date22 Nov 2021
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The online response to the recent trauma for the Simplify Group reminded me of Monty Python’s “Life of Brian”, when John Cleese’s character Reg, answered the question; “what did the Romans ever do for us?” with “Well, apart from sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health that is”. The difficult situation serves as a wakeup call to everyone working in every business today. However, the responses I have read on social media has once more demonstrated that the property industry continues to defy commercial norms. Solicitors have been preaching fire and brimstone...
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peterambrose

Dust down your GCSE knowledge – they’re shipping Boxer off to the glue factory

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Date15 Sep 2021
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Last week’s story of Geronimo reminded me of a story from my school days. In case you missed it, he was an Alpaca from Bristol (probably not a native) who had twice tested positive for tuberculosis. He was judged to be a threat to other livestock and was put down by the authorities. Obviously a quiet news day. Even as Geronimo was roped and dragged away, its owner, Helen Macdonald, was still claiming the test results were invalid. She said they had made a mistake and there was nothing wrong – these people who thought they knew better just didn’t...
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paper files

The best lawyers use paper files

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Date29 Jul 2021
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In Billy Ocean’s top hit of 1985 “When the going gets tough, the tough get going” he probably didn’t realise his words would be so prophetic. While some in the property industry coped well with the pressures of the past few months, many did not and the scuffles between agents and lawyers made the events at Wembley during the Euro 2020 final look like the Vicarage Road family stand at Watford. As with the final, people are now engaged in hand-wringing about the causes of such hostility. I don’t understand why people find this so difficult – it’s obvious. Agents...
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house handover keys

“Phew – thank goodness all that SDLT nonsense is over”

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Date05 Jul 2021
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Phew – thank goodness all that SDLT nonsense is over.   At least for now. Those companies who got one of their student mates to hack together a few web pages and call it an app to revolutionise the house buying and selling process can go back to their lifestyle coaching businesses, or whatever they were doing before. From my perspective as the owner of a conveyancing business, frankly, the last few months have been a little tricky.  Having spent time on social media (more LinkedIn than TikTok ) I’ve seen a rise in opinions about how much work law firms...
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Lawyers not jack of all trades

“Lawyers – not Jack of all trades – master of one”

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Date29 Jun 2021
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A few years ago, in a moment of weakness, I allowed two marketing consultants into our offices who rocked up with their rimless glasses, purple portfolios, and concrete opinions. Lawyers The meeting started alright, but rapidly went downhill when we showed our new tagline; “Where Conveyancing Meets Technology”.  They gave each other a knowing ( or rather, know-it-all ) look and actually laughed at us. Which was nice. They explained in the patronising manner that they’d clearly learned at marketing college that, “people don’t know what conveyancing is and don’t want to know” and offered different combinations of the words...
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peterambrose

When is abuse acceptable?

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Date10 Jun 2021
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When is abuse acceptable? I was on holiday in Suffolk last week when I spotted a sign in a pasty shop which said “Abuse will not be tolerated here”. Which set me thinking – how did it come to this? Maybe it was a frustrated client for whom the lack of a Cornish Large Special was unacceptable; they’d not received a satisfactory explanation and someone was responsible. Given the lack of a Pasty Ombudsman, no doubt it had escalated, Anchorman-style, into an ugly clash of shortcrust shoving. No wonder the owner had to put up a sign. Striking similarities with...
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“Conveyancing Technology – when you don’t know what you don’t know”

“Conveyancing Technology – When you don’t know what you don’t know”

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Date10 Jun 2021
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“CONVEYANCING TECHNOLOGY – WHEN YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW”.  The title of this piece might come across as somewhat negative. It’s actually the phrase we use during interviews when an inexperienced candidate claims “a lot of expertise in conveyancing”.  This normally elicits a raised eyebrow and the comment, “the problem is, you don’t know what you don’t know”. Which is exactly the same issue with law firm owners who dismiss technology as not being the solution to the challenges facing the conveyancing industry today. I’m not suggesting technology turns an inexperienced case handler into a 10 year PQE...
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Tug of war, two arms pulling a rope

Lawyers vs Agents – We need a war, not a truce

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Date29 Apr 2021
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The climate activist, Greta Thunberg, asks great questions. In a recent documentary, she questioned whether planting trees reduces carbon dioxide. The answer was, in the short term, no. It takes 15 to 20 years before they absorb more carbon dioxide than the area harvested to grow them actually produces. When it comes to solving that particular problem, ancient forests are more effective than young trees. This is exactly the same argument we hear from lawyers – old is good, new is bad. Except that unlike trees, these older specimens typically contribute more toxic gas to the environment than reduce it....
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digitalsignatures

“That inflatable David Hasselhoff doll was a terrible mistake”

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Date06 Apr 2021
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Cast your mind back ten years, when you could go to the pub, drink 12 pints of snakebite, stumble back home via the kebab van and fall asleep on your mum’s sofa. In those days, usually, the only repercussions would be a hangover that lasted most of the next day.  If you were very unlucky, you’d wake to find your mum standing over you demanding an explanation for the lumpy puddle that had mysteriously appeared next to the coffee table. These days – it’s all changed. After an evening watching the box-set of “Selling Sunset”, clearing the fridge of Stella...
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Tv on wall with tv stand in sitting room

“Not sure that TV was worth it”

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Date26 Feb 2021
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It’s late February 2031, and Joe, 11, is asking his father about the past; “Dad, what did you do during the Great Pandemic of 2021?” As a frown cast a shadow across his face, Simon turns wearily to his son, remembering a similar question he asked his grandfather about the Second World War. “It was a difficult and stressful time, completely taken up with buying our first house”. Joe looks confused; “But my teacher told me that everyone was volunteering in Boris’s Big Jab’s Army initiative giving vaccinations to the elderly and the vulnerable”. “Not me son – I spent...
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Reapit and Case Tracker

Deep diving into the importance and value of software integrations

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Date16 Feb 2021
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Guest blog by Reapit, the UK’s leading supplier for estate agency CRM solutions. Do you like apps? One of the advantages of centralising day-to-day processes through a single system is how new tools can be made to work together in harmony to drive efficiencies that enrich the end-customer experience and help businesses to grow their revenue streams. If you have used or managed a CRM before then you might be aware that some allow for API integrations to be implemented that can improve or add to some aspect of functionality. But app integrations are a step beyond this for CRMs....
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Music

“Tony blair’s choice in music is outstanding”

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Date18 Jan 2021
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“I’m singing it now, things can only get better. Only get better.” Yup, I’ve been listening to D:Ream’s “Things can only get better” on repeat for DAYS now.  One of the few benefits of working from home is being able to choose your own music rather than when I’m at the office where my colleagues’ Spotify playlists exclude such 90’s classics. And it is a classic. It’s no surprise that in the last election that Labour won, it was the backing track for their events. Forget Blair’s brave new policies, it was this that brought a whole new meaning to positivity. And let’s...
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peterambrose

If you jab us do we not bleed

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Date11 Dec 2020
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Last week, Gavin Williamson’s suggestion to scrap GCSEs took me back to school years studying Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice.” I’m sure just the title brings back memories of Shylock’s plaintive speech about the injustices suffered by his race. Having read the numerous emotional online posts from beaten-down lawyers. I thought there were lessons from that classic book to be drawn for today’s world. Obviously, the last time I drew a historical comparison, I evoked the level of fury that made Brexit arguments look like a children’s tea-party squabble over pass-the-parcel. Despite Alexander Pope’s warning that “fools rush in where...
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Managing Director, Peter Ambrose and the former executive director of Douglas and Gordon, and founder of Viewber, Ed Mead discuss a few ideas for how to speed things up with the home buying and selling process. 

Speeding up the home buying and selling process

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Date07 Dec 2020
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Managing Director, Peter Ambrose and the former executive director of Douglas and Gordon, and founder of Viewber, Ed Mead discuss a few ideas for how to speed things up with the home buying and selling process. Watch the video now:   As published by https://propertyindustryeye.com/peter-ambrose-and-ed-mead-discuss-ideas-on-how-to-speed-things-up/
Lawyers holding pen over contract

Solving conveyancing delays is a ‘bigly’ problem

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Date13 Nov 2020
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If we’ve learned anything from the US elections it’s that doing paperwork in advance doesn’t guarantee a speedy outcome. Sitting around waiting for results and being powerless to speed things up, had a Conveyancing 2020 feel about it. Whether it’s voting slips or FENSA certificates, just because you ask for information upfront, doesn’t make the process go quicker. That might help those who think it will solve all the delays in conveyancing, wake up, and smell the coffee. Or they can keep peddling the same, Trump-like message. Convinced they are right and the real world is wrong. Work from home...
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movinghouse

How can you help speed up your home move?

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Date03 Nov 2020
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The number of sales being agreed right now is at record levels on Rightmove, which means it’s likely you’ll find it taking a bit longer from having your offer accepted to picking up the keys for your home. To try and help, we spoke to Peter Ambrose, who heads up conveyancing firm The Partnership, for his expert advice on helping your sale or purchase go smoothly and quickly. Peter says that right now they’re seeing sales of properties take 40% longer to complete, and the number of cases they’re working on has doubled over the past three months. This means...
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chain-100

The conveyancing process is NOT broken

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Date02 Nov 2020
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“Oh yes it is!” “Oh no it’s not”. While panto season seems a lifetime away, when it comes to the home buying process, the pantomime villains of the peace are definitely the lawyers. However, unlike these annual theatre-based bust-ups, arguments about the conveyancing process are far more frequent.  Barely a month goes by without an online flare-up, normally resulting in someone declaring; “The conveyancing process is broken – we need to start again”. In my opinion, this is just plain wrong. The conveyancing process is NOT broken. What do you mean it’s not broken? I can hear the cracking of...
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blowdoorsoff-100

“You were only supposed to blow the doors off”

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Date27 Oct 2020
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When the chancellor Rishi Sunak introduced the stamp duty holiday in July, he probably wasn’t thinking about Michael Caine inching his way down a bus teetering on the brink of disaster in the 1960’s classic movie, The Italian Job. It seems many are fearing a similar cliff-hanger in March next year. When the announcement was made, the SDLT abolitionists had a party while the thoughts of lawyers immediately turned to a potential collapse of the market in April. But here we are, three months later and the petrol that Rishi threw on the property market fire is causing all sorts...
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COVID and technology

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Date06 Aug 2020
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 “My CRM was a cardboard box … that was full of files with no paperwork in them” Those were the chilling words uttered by a lawyer I interviewed for a job last week. Every few months, someone writes an article about how lazy lawyers are and how bad the conveyancing process is.  The comments are always the same; “tell us something we don’t know” or “lawyers are lazy and incompetent and the system needs to be scrapped”. So why are things so bad and what is it going to take to make the change? From my experience, it’s a combination...
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5 Questions clients should be asking lawyers

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Date17 Mar 2020
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It is starting to become clearer that the choice of property lawyer has an impact on the success or otherwise of a housing transaction. Unfortunately, it is still very difficult for consumers to gauge the quality of the service that they will receive from a lawyer. Obviously, recommendations are always the best option, but the source of these can often influence choice.  Indeed, sometimes recommendations are made purely because the person will receive a referral fee payment, rather than on merit.  Which is wrong for so many reasons that we’ll not go into here. But the problem is; if you...
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What we don’t do as lawyers

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Date05 Mar 2020
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One of the more curious aspects of conveyancing lawyers is the wide range of jobs they are expected to do. A property lawyer usually has to win the work in the first place, do all the administration, work out the financial side of things and still have enough time to advise their clients on the legal aspects of the transaction. It’s no wonder deals take so long to go through; there aren’t enough hours in the day to do all those things. However, there are some things that lawyers are not responsible for, and we though that it might be...
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How do lawyer panels work – a client’s perspective

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Date20 Feb 2020
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The choice of lawyer that a home buyer or seller makes can determine the success or otherwise of their deal. This is why an independent recommendation is ideal, but the problem is, HOW? Friends and family, an estate agent or broker who recommends purely on recent experience. Unfortunately for the consumer, many referrers and even supposedly independent comparison websites, have agreements with panel management companies. They manage the referral process and only choose lawyers prepared to allow the public to pay the additional fees. These are then passed to the referrer or comparison site. So is this a problem for the...
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Why is the public paying too much for cheap conveyancing?

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Date10 Feb 2020
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Pressure has been steadily mounting for more transparency and fairer pricing for the public when buying legal services. Indeed, when the Competitions and Markets Authority (CMA) investigated the legal market they found that pricing was not transparent.  They have stipulated that for certain services such as conveyancing, lawyers had to put prices on their websites. The CMA thought this would help consumers compare prices between law firms, and enable them to make more informed decisions.  In our opinion, this plan was at best optimistic. It certainly doesn’t help the public avoid paying over the odds for conveyancing. How do lawyers...
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The Use of AI in Conveyancing

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Date17 Dec 2019
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We are usually disappointed when reading any articles about the role of technology in conveyancing.  This is mostly due to a chronic lack of ambition, imagination and thought. However, when it comes to artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning in conveyancing, we are never let down.  Because frankly, no-one ever writes about it. What is AI and is it relevant Most technology discussions about the role of technology in conveyancing espouse the benefits of chatbots, portals and self-service quoting systems.  Hardly topics that are, in the words of Michael Caine, going to blow the doors off.  Whilst AI coves a...
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Five-things-a-lawyer-should-not-be-doing!

Five things a lawyer should not be doing!

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Date13 Dec 2019
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manualIf you believe the legal trade press, the process of house buying and selling is going through momentous change. There are regular press announcements of technology that is going to simplify the conveyancing process.  Sadly, the harsh reality is that conveyancing is dominated by small law firms that have not changed for years. Any suggestions of new working practices are quickly dismissed. With lawyers getting involved in all aspects of the transaction, the quality of client service will continue to deteriorate. Based on our experience of interviewing lawyers, we’ve identified 5 activities that we think they need to stop doing...
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The life of a Conveyancer…

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Date06 Dec 2019
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We regularly speak to estate agents about their frustrations in dealing with lawyers with most saying they are often reactive rather than proactive and generally non-communicative. The challenge is that conveyancers are held back by a mix of paper-based systems and old-fashioned working practices that have dogged them for years. While there is no such thing as a typical day in the life of a conveyancer, here are some of the daily challenges they face which might go someway to explain why they find it so difficult to be as responsive as most would like. The changing role of the...
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Why do property law firms struggle to answer the telephone?

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Date28 Nov 2019
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One of the most common complaints about property law firms is how difficult it is to speak to someone about a case.  This second only to the complaints about the difficulty to speak to someone who actually knows anything about the case.  Why is it so difficult to actually speak to a knowledgeable conveyancer and what is the solution? The key problem Most law firms are owned and run by lawyers who are used to do everything themselves. For example – suggest to a lawyer that a salesperson could do a quote and you will receive the following response;  “No. ...
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Using technology to protect clients against fraud

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Date20 Nov 2019
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Fraudsters are constantly looking at different ways of stealing money from people who are buying or selling a property.  As lawyers, we have a responsibility to help keep our clients’ money safe.  Which is why we turn to technology for help. A typical approach Most law firms we deal with use traditional paper files and email as their main method of communication.  Therefore, their clients will have to rely on this type of insecure technology. This puts them at risk of various frauds such as impersonation or interception.  Law firms that are serious about protecting their clients must not use...
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5 top tips to protect clients against fraud

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Date13 Nov 2019
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When buying or selling a property, there are two key issues facing clients.  The first is losing their money to fraudsters.  The second, and possibly worse, is losing their property to the same fraudsters.  Either way, the outcome is not good. While lawyers are obliged to protect their client’s money and property, clients must also protect themselves against the ever-more sophisticated criminals looking to steal from them. Basic email security Fraudsters know that consumers are quite lax when it comes to email security and use this to their advantage.  Given that lawyers rely on email with their clients, once a...
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Anti Money Laundering and Lawyer Due Diligence

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Date06 Nov 2019
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According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2017 the size of the “hidden” or “black” economy in the UK was just over 6% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) i.e. roughly £100bn. This is a massive cost to the country.  Crooks who are looking to use property to carry out money laundering have a formidable adversary defending our government’s tax receipts. Yes, your friendly, local solicitor. And his secretary. It starts off tricky … Increasing numbers of people are now required to check that people buying property are who they say they are.  For example, in a rather weird turn of...
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Fraud – law firms need to wake up to reality

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Date31 Oct 2019
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Every day, conveyancing firms transfer millions of pounds to clients and lawyers… And crooks.  Being an ideal target for fraudsters, most law firms are struggling to understand how to deal with this problem. A dose of reality In 2018, clients in the property sector lost over £216m due to fraud.  Law firms rely on email to communicate with their clients, despite email scams being a common fraud.  For instance, fraudsters will use a similar email address to a law firm.  They then email the client advising them that bank details have changed and to send their deposit to the new...
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STP – The importance of one set of data

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Date25 Oct 2019
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Anyone familiar with financial institutions will know that the introduction of “Straight Through Processing” (STP) revolutionised their business by reducing risk.  It was a simple solution to a complex issue that imposed the discipline of ensuring data throughout a transaction did not change from start to finish.  So what has this got to do with conveyancing? The data problem Conveyancing today has an appalling reputation for being highly inefficient.  This is due primarily to the lack of attention that law firms pay to how they capture and use data.  Even where companies do use case management systems; property information, addresses,...
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5 ways agents can help in the buying process

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Date18 Oct 2019
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As we have seen with the ups and downs of the online agency business, getting deals through in today’s market takes a great deal more effort than just listing and getting an offer.  It’s a rare deal indeed when transactions move through in four to six weeks. Here are our top tips of how agents can help get deals through more effectively. 1. Get it right from the start It sounds obvious, but we are still seeing too many chains based on optimism rather than a clear defined path.  Qualifying both sides of the deal is critical, as is checking...
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Building regulations: What agents should know!

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Date10 Oct 2019
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When an issue of building regulation approval comes up on a transaction, a collective shudder goes through everyone involved. Buyers and sellers get nervous, and the agent has to rely on the lawyer to sort it out.  What are building regulations and can anything be done to avoid any issues arising? What are they? People confuse building regulations with planning permissions but they are very different.  They cover health and safety issues, such as whether a staircase to a loft conversion is too steep. New buildings, conversions and even small alterations such as the removal of a chimney breast must...
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Self-service: What consumers are REALLY looking for

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Date01 Oct 2019
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People want to do everything through their mobile phone in the same way as buying home insurance or booking a holiday.  But can such a self-service approach be used to benefit conveyancing clients? 100% self-service We introduced a web portal a few years ago to protect our clients against fraud.  Today, on average, our log in over 75 times during their transaction, with the most active viewing over 450 times. They obviously want to know what is going on. While some would like to do everything themselves, conveyancing is complicated and there are some practical problems stopping them doing this. ...
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The key to growth in conveyancing – Technology

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Date27 Sep 2019
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If you’ve ever wondered about the secret to McDonalds’ success, it’s their French Fries.  Customers know that wherever they are in the world, they always taste the same. The ability to scale a consistent service is vital for any business, and this is particularly true for conveyancing. Firms must expand to survive which means hiring more people, opening new offices and investing in technology.  And this is where it typically goes wrong. The acquisition short-cut myth All small law firms reach a point where the owners must retire, which often involves offering their client base to another company looking to expand.  ...
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5 reasons law firms should have a sales team

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Date19 Sep 2019
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Most law firms don’t employ sales people because their owners don’t see the point of them.  Here are our top reasons why they should start investing in a sales team: Reason 1 – Lawyers aren’t sales people Sales involves spending a huge amount of time on people who usually don’t want to speak with you.  Sales people understand this goes with the territory, which is why this isn’t always easy for lawyers. Reason 2 – Lawyers should do the Lawyering Lawyers should focus on getting deals through, not spending time giving quotes which can take up most of their day. ...
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Sales Progression – Managing the chain

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Date10 Sep 2019
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Government figures currently show deals take on average 19 weeks to go through with about 35% failing. Due to this there is now much more emphasis on sales progression. Agents need to understand more about the legal aspects of home buying and the importance of managing the chain. The key challenges of progression Agents are faced with the challenge of determining the progress of part of the chain as it involves different lawyers each using their own unique approaches. Progress can be measured by simple milestones such as whether a contract pack has been received or searches ordered. However, a...
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Why don’t law firms have sales teams?

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Date05 Sep 2019
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When we mystery shop our competitors we are often shocked at their atrocious approach to winning new business.  Where we do manage to speak to someone, it’s a lawyer who asks a couple of questions and says they will email a quote to us, hurrying us off the telephone as quickly as possible. Why do law firms place so little importance on winning new work? Sales is easy We believe that the thinking behind this is because business owners know that lawyers are bright people and selling requires little skill so those, who know their subject, will win the business. ...
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“When good enough is really not good enough”

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Date19 Jun 2019
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Whenever the subject of “online” agents is mentioned there is an outpouring of dismissiveness.  Unfortunately, the low-price genie is out of the bottle.  Some online agents have demonstrated, this does not enable them to provide the service needed in today’s market.  However, from a consumers’ perspective, these offerings are innovative, modern and let’s face it, when you’re picking an agent, it’s only got to be “good enough”.  The challenge we find is that agents are having to work harder than ever to get the message across.  When it comes to getting deals over the line, service makes the difference. “Just...
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If you think Game of Thrones is brutal – try getting a conveyancing quote

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Date17 Apr 2019
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Despite the Government’s wonderfully naive intentions to break down the walls that cause such divisions in the house buying process, there are no signs of any dragons flying in to save the day.  Which is a shame, because as clients when you are asked the question “Have you got a lawyer?” it’s like being thrown into a Game of Thrones-like medieval world of unfamiliar terminology, awkward alliances and a completely unpredictable outcome. A ‘cheap conveyancer’ google search nowadays will result in a number of price comparison websites, typically sporting an “Expedia circa 2003” look about them.  They all promise to...
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Agent referral fees – It’s not all doom an gloom

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Date18 Mar 2019
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We talk and meet with over 200 agents every month and discuss the most effective ways we should work together, which we like to think gives us a good insight into many of the issues they face today.  That’s why the recent announcements about referral fees and a merger between the owner of a major panel manager and the country’s largest conveyancers, were of particular interest to us. Just a reminder – the government has told agents that they’ve got a year to start telling their customers about the size of referral fees they receive, or they’ll be back with...
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We need a faster horse!

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Date06 Mar 2019
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When Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motors was quoted as saying; “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses” he could have been talking about the conveyancing industry. Frankly, we read too many articles by armchair experts about how technology is revolutionising the way that lawyers work, when in reality, nothing could be further from the truth.  Not being funny, but when a law firm implements an online form and this is considered newsworthy, we know that the adoption of new technology is not exactly high on your average lawyer’s agenda. Whilst we...
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“Can Technology help achieve the one-to-one goal of service delivery?”

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Date23 Jan 2019
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When lawyers, having been subjected to years of relentless approaches by case management salesmen, finally submit and sign on the dotted line, they typically find that the breathless wait for the benefits to deliver, tends to be just that – a breathless wait. Using technology to deliver joyful client service in the legal industry is rarely successful as initial optimism gives way to cynical disappointment. However, rather than consigning it to the “too-difficult” pile, the deployment of technology must be better understood and applied to processes and requirements that genuinely meet the goal of service delivery. That goal is to...
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All I want for Christmas is a perfect conveyancer!

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Date19 Dec 2018
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Whilst 2018 has taught us to be careful what you wish for, here are some of our ideas we think make up an agent’s ideal lawyer. Ludicrously low caseloads As we know, agents typically struggle to speak with lawyers. The ideal lawyer would only work on half a dozen cases at most – ideally, just those of the agent’s and no one else’s. Live in the office It’s fairly common that agents (and clients) can’t get hold of lawyers because they’re on holiday (obviously without letting anyone know in advance), “in a meeting” or the phones are switched off because...
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Are you using a conveyancer who’s a member of the sales prevention team?

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Date21 Nov 2018
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Frankly, being an estate agent (especially in London) is not a barrel of laughs right now. And just when you thought things couldn’t get worse, with sellers not budging on price and buyers using any excuse to walk away, your boss does a deal with a panel manager and you are forced to tell clients that “our hand-picked expert lawyers will get your deal through more quickly”. As Joseph Goebbels said: if you’re going to tell a lie, make sure it’s a BIG one. Although there are many LinkedIn experts offering sage-like advice on improving your service offering, we think...
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“First they come for the lawyers …”

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Date11 Oct 2018
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Martin Niemölller 1940’s poem, “First They Came …” warned about the rise of the right-wing in Germany and started with the words; “First they came for the socialists and I did not speak out … because I was not a socialist.  Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out … because I was not a trade unionist”. Suffice to say, the poem doesn’t end on a positive note. It brings to mind the news that from this December, all lawyers (especially those doing conveyancing) must be totally transparent about the services they provide – documenting...
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Should lawyers be allowed to take holidays?

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Date06 Sep 2018
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Thinking about Jon Snow’s concerns in Game of Thrones that “winter is coming” brought to mind an issue that arises in the summer months and drives terror into the hearts of even hardened agents. This issue is typically revealed after a call to a conveyancer for a case update elicits the following response: “I am sorry but the lawyer on that case is on holiday.” Now, we’re not saying lawyers shouldn’t take holidays. Frankly, given the fractiousness we’ve experienced from our counterparts recently, some of these keyboard warriors could do with a bit of time away to relax. However, the way lawyers...
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“Technology? That’s for kids, not Conveyancers”

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Date03 Aug 2018
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If you’ve not actually said it, you’ve no doubt thought it: “most lawyers are slow and inefficient.” We don’t disagree, but the burning question is, “why?” Typically, it’s because of a historically sceptical attitude towards the benefits of technology and how it is implemented. Businesses are underpinned by the quality of their technology, and if people saw how law firms typically use it, they’d start to understand why their service levels are often so appalling. Our experience of speaking to and hiring lawyers from a range of firms give us an insight into how they are run and their sheer...
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Boris was right – it’s all about control

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Date25 Jun 2018
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Last month, we were challenged to write about the wider issues faced by the house buying public rather than just those suffered by “whining conveyancers”.  To be fair, lawyers are known to whine.  It’s usually because they work in old-fashioned environments with ludicrously high caseloads and constantly ringing telephones caused by a complete lack of understanding of service provision. We really didn’t need the government to run an enquiry into what is wrong with the buying and selling process.  Budget-starved Whitehall could have saved a fortune by popping into a couple of estate agents, called a few lawyers and carried...
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“Buckle up, we’re going to be experiencing some turbulence”

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Date12 Jun 2018
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It’s that time of year when our thoughts turn towards summer holidays with travel to warmer climates, freedom and a break from damp mornings, train malfunctions and buyers changing their minds because, well, just because. Of course, all the excited anticipation of the holiday is somewhat tempered by the pilot’s announcement on first boarding the plane that “in the event of an emergency, you’ll need to adopt the brace position”. Which is timely advice for agents right now with the latest Sunday announcement from the Housing Secretary Sajid Javit, https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-to-professionalise-the-estate-agent-market who seems intent of ruining any agent’s carefree holiday plans....
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“Honestly, why does conveyancing take SO long?”

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Date18 May 2018
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It was Michael Gove, who famously said “I think that the people of this country have had enough of experts” but when it comes to those expressing opinions about why house buying and selling is so slow, we have to agree. As a company deep in the muck and bullets of the residential conveyancing front-line, we’re bemused by the opinions expressed by those armchair generals viewing the battle through their rose-tinted telescopes on comfy sofas.  They come from all walks of life – government, trade bodies, consumer watchdogs and even those panel managers that make such an invaluable contribution to...
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Can a solicitor REALLY affect the outcome of a deal?

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Date16 Mar 2018
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When we’re talking to agents, our favourite question is “what do think makes a good solicitor?” Most normally say “someone I can always get hold of” or “someone who can get deals through”. This presents a challenge for agents to ensure their clients and buyers actually do choose the best solicitor.  Given that every deal seems more challenging than the last, understanding how things can go wrong is a useful way to help explain to clients that their choice of solicitor may determine whether a transaction succeeds, or fails. In the past, solicitors could be confident that mistakes could be...
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It’s all about exchange. Obviously.

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Date30 Jan 2018
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We spend a lot of time talking to estate agents and the most common feedback we get is that they are frustrated by how long deals are taking, the difficulty involved and fall-through rates. The actual figure for the number of deals that fail is understandably difficult to pin down – it’s not something an agent will want to publicise. Indeed, the recent accusations about the completion rates of “online-only” agents definitely has a whiff of glass houses and stones about it. When the government published their highly ambitious consultation last year, outlining their plans to “fix the broken housing market”...
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New government initiative – are they trying to solve the wrong problem?

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Date22 Oct 2017
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We knew that the government were going to look into the house buying and selling process, so we weren’t surprised to see it hit the headlines this morning on the BBC. However, we were a little bit disappointed to see the focus on “gazumping”, a problem, that frankly, we see very little of these days.  Ask any estate agent about issues caused by buyers fighting over properties, and you’ll see a look of wistful wonderment as they try to remember the last time this issue raised it’s ugly head. Suffice to say, the problems with the house buying and selling...
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Donald Trump for President – that would be mad!

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Date05 Oct 2016
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We thought that the prospect of The Donald becoming president of the United States was the ultimate in madness. That was until we were sent a price list from a panel manager. Maybe we’ve got a little too much self-respect, but when the proportion of a legal fee going to the referrer is higher than that going to the lawyer, something is not right with the world. Given that agents know that low fees are not good for any industry (especially theirs) we’re amazed that people still use such organisations. Although “Additional Revenue Streams” is a common mantra these days,...
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PLEASE NOTE: Our offices will be closed from 4pm on 16 December 2022 for our annual Christmas party. The final day for completions is 20 December 2022. We are closing at 1pm on 23 December 2022 for the festive season break and will reopen at 9am on the 3 January 2023.