Industry urged to get behind National Conveyancing Week 2023
A National Conveyancing Week, designed to inform, educate, assist, motivate, reassure, help recruit new entrants, improve the profile of conveyancers and conveyancing, and ensure fees can be set at and kept at an acceptable level, is just under 3 months away with Supporters from across the conveyancing industry lending their support. Formally launched at the […]
Nearly 1m transactions from January to August 2022
Transaction volumes topped nearly 1.5m in 2021 and strong demand has continued to drive a buoyant market in 2022 with 908,509 residential transactions up to the end of August 2022 compared to 724,088 in the same period in the previous year. A conveyancing market report from IRN Legal Reports also indicated that the market value […]
What’s happening with Local Land Charges?
The intended centralisation of the Local Land Charges registers has been well documented; but it’s not the only item on the agenda for Local Land Charge teams. In this latest Today’s Conveyancer Podcast host David Opie is joined by Land Data Chief Executive Fiona Barron, Pat Morgan, Chair of the Local Land Charges Institute, and […]
NHQB launched to give greater protections to new build buyers
The New Homes Quality Board (NHQB) has been launched to ensure new build home buyers are granted more protections on their purchases. The NHQB has introduced a new Consumer Code which includes a broad range of requirements for developers to ease consumers fears in the house purchasing process. The Consumer Code was finalised following a […]
Bank of England figures show boom in mortgage approvals for August
Latest figures show boom in mortgage approvals, reversing pattern shown in previous months Following a week of turmoil for the property industry the latest figures from the Bank of England (BoE) have shown that approvals increased in August, reversing a spiral of downward trends seen for the last several months. Figures show approvals increased to […]
Diary of a high street conveyancer: 3rd October 2022
What a week – again! A week in which we were called on to dig deep and act as Agony Uncles and Aunts to our clients. Much of this week was not about property law, but a matter of reassuring clients as best we could. Some of the questions I have been asked this week […]
A week of turmoil for the property industry
Following the announcement last week of the immediate cutting of Stamp Duty Land Tax, alongside a host of other tax cutting measures announced by Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, there has been significant conjecture about the state of the economy. The value of the Pound against the US Dollar hit a record low; the interest rate rise […]
HBSG has taken industry as far as it can without government intervention
The government needs to step in to mandate reforms that promise to revolutionise the home buying and selling process, a roundtable organised by the Council for Licensed Conveyancers (CLC) has heard. Speakers at the annual stakeholder event also highlighted recruitment issues in the conveyancing market, after the huge surge of work during the post-lockdown stamp […]
Index reveals the fastest and slowest regions to complete transactions
Five fastest and slowest areas in England and Wales to complete property purchases A new index has highlighted the fastest, and slowest, areas in the country for transaction times. The index calculates the average time it takes between the day when a property is marked as sold (subject to contract – SSTC) and the registration […]
Property market downturn yet to materialise as transactions rocket in August
Homemovers not put off by interest rate hikes as Land Registry data shows boost in transactions during August Suggestions of an imminent downturn are beginning to unwind as UK residential property transactions soared once again in August 2022, despite successive interest rate rises over previous months making borrowing more expensive. According to the latest data […]
The new normal: what does it really mean?
In a post-pandemic society “the new normal” has come to symbolise the way in which our personal and business lives have changed following the significant upheaval of the last 2 years. But what does a “new normal” mean in the property industry? Following a survey of over 700 property professionals we can reveal exactly what it means […]
Home insurance quotes with subsidence history increases by 637%
Home insurance quotes with a history of subsidence claims have risen by a staggering 637% over the last 10 years, new research has revealed. This is partly due to an increase in subsidence issues. Between 2012 and 2021, there was an average annual increase of 27.8% for home insurance quotes, according to GoCompare Home Insurance. The […]
Diary of a high street conveyancer; 1st August 2022
Watching the amazing sports events at the Commonwealth Games, I thought about how long these athletes train for and their dedication to their chosen sport. I then thought about conveyancing, and I know that there are no Olympics for conveyancing, but I do believe that to become a good conveyancer you need to learn about […]
Tech comparison index will enable conveyancers to benchmark against peers
Conveyancing firms will be able to compare their technology and digitisation against peers with the launch of the Digital Conveyancing Maturity Index by conveyancing technology platform provider InfoTrack. Claimed to be an industry first, the index will survey the digital conveyancing capabilities of law firms to understand how digitally advanced their processes are or are […]
Calling on the next generation of conveyancers
The conveyancing industry is changing. It can sometimes feel as though traditional high street conveyancing is a dying art. Is unregistered title and complex land law being replaced by the need to be financial fraud and identity experts, environmental scientists and climate change soothsayers? The role of a conveyancer is so much more than “the […]
Joined-up ID checks provide a commercial opportunity for conveyancers
As I write this, I am about to be in the proud position that Credas – the company that I lead – is to be one of the first accredited with DIATF status. DIATF is the new Government approved framework that prescribes rules and standards in providing trustworthy digital identity solutions. Think of it as […]
Equity release now supplementing pensions by 181%
New research from mortgage broker, Henry Dannell, has revealed how the average homeowner utilising equity release via Later Life mortgages is able to supplement their income by a fifth, while it can also bring about a boost to the average pension pot by as much as 181%. Equity release is a popular method for those […]
Rightmove HPI: sellers increase by 13% as prices hit sixth consecutive record
The average price of property coming to market sees a sixth consecutive record this month, rising by 0.4% (+£1,354) to £369,968. Rightmove’s latest House Price Index reveals a continuing desire to move, with low numbers of homes for sale driving further price growth even at a time when personal finances are becoming increasingly stretched. Buyer […]
New research reveals growing retirement wealth held in property
New research from Aviva has revealed the increasing importance of the role of property wealth in retirement planning. The research looked into levels of spending, saving and attitudes towards funding retirement in the over 45s. The study also looked at property, and whether the thriving market has affected people’s attitudes towards their property wealth, and […]
Halifax HPI: property prices increasing at fastest rate since 2004
The latest Halifax House Price Index (HPI) has been released. Halifax’s June HPI reveals that house prices were up 13% in a year, to a record high of £294,845. This is the fastest rate of price increase the property market has seen since 2004. House prices increased by 1.8% in June, the twelfth consecutive monthly […]
