Richard Bretherton, Solicitor and Chief Executive of Ochresoft, responds to the CEO of Veyo on the Hoowla/Veyo price comparison infographic:
“I’m not surprised that Veyo have objected to Hoowla’s infographic showing that Veyo is significantly more expensive for all but the smallest of law firms.
“Mr Vigar of Veyo claims that Veyo is such a revolutionary and unique system that a price comparison cannot be made.
“Of course, anyone looking to adopt a conveyancing system has to compare the different products on offer by considering features and price and we think Mr Vigar is overstating the position.
“We in the legal community are waiting to see what Veyo will actually deliver at launch – and when. Our own product Intelliworks Conveyancing delivers all but two of the features they are offering and a great deal more in a mature, proven package. We know that other legal software vendors will say the same.
“Even on its own publicity, Veyo is a much more limited system, but it does offer two new, headline-grabbing features.
“First, there is the chain view. To be effective, this requires everyone in the chain to be a subscriber to Veyo. Is that a realistic expectation – we think not. A partial chain view is of little value as HM Land Registry discovered with their very expensive failed chain matrix project.
“What is really useful for customers and estate agents is online case tracking. We have offered that for years and so do many of our competitors. Our portal enables all authorised parties – clients, estate agents, lenders – to view the status of and milestones in any transaction.
“We gather from the Law Society’s pre-release publicity that Veyo’s second unique feature, the Deal Room, will be limited to the law firms engaged in an individual transaction. We are not surprised: the technical and security problems involved in opening up the transaction to any interested party are huge and significant. So does the Deal Room really justify the extra expenditure and effort?
“It appears to us that Hoowla’s infographic gives a useful illustration of Veyo’s relative pricing. However, we’d urge any conveyancer who is choosing which system to adopt to look at what is actually delivered in practice by that system and its ‘value for money’.”
