LFS Conveyancing Awards’ Shortlist For Best Website, Marketing & Social Media Category
The Law Firm Services Conveyancing Conference and gala dinner with awards ceremony have become a leading conveyancing event in the UK, with its array of innovative ideas, exhibitors and speakers. The 2019 event, which is sponsored by Groundsure, brings together the conveyancing industry to celebrate its achievements in the last 12 months, will take place […]
National Housing Audit To Provide New Build Development Baseline Standard
Whilst the Government remain committed to achieving 300,000 new build properties per year within the next five years, a new audit is looking at how the design of residential developments has changed in the past ten years in order to help create a baseline standard for new build developments in the future. A new National […]
North West Solicitors Protects Firm And Its Clients From Cyber Threats
North West law firm, Bell Lamb and Joynson Solicitors puts cyber security top of their agenda after successfully being presented with Cyber Essentials certification through accredited assessor, Practical Vision Network. The approachable firm recognises the advantages of being awarded the certification, which is a Government backed accreditation scheme, that protects their firm from severe damage […]
Search Acumen comments on Homes England Annual Housing Statistics
Search Acumen comments on Homes England Annual Housing Statistics Andy Sommerville, Director at Search Acumen, comments: “A buoyant market, a prosperous future – those are the phrases that spring to mind looking at today’s statistics. As Help to Buy continues to fuel new builds across the country, we’re expecting to see the numbers for new […]
Brexit Concerns Blamed For 1 Million Lost Home Sales
Since the referendum result in 2016, around 1 million prospective British home buyers have delayed moving home because of Brexit uncertainty. Having commissioned a survey of 1.5 million Brits, GoCompare found that Brexit and the affect it will have on the UK economy is the biggest influencing factor in deterring people from buying a property. […]
Leasehold Ground Rents Now Exceed £447 Million Per Year
The average leaseholder is now paying £319 in ground rent costs every year and have experienced an above inflation rate annual average rise of 5%. According to the NAEA Propertymark’s ‘Leasehold Report’, leaseholders are now paying in excess of £447 million in ground rents. Whilst ground rent contracts usually rise every decade, 10% of the […]
Conveyancer Struck Off Following 2008 Property Sale
A sole practitioner from Preston has agreed to be stripped of his profession regarding a conveyancing transaction which took place 11 years ago. The long-serving solicitor, Clive Leslie Billington of Dowson Billington firm agreed with the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) and approved by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) in April 2019, to be struck off. […]
CMA Formally Launch Investigation Into Leasehold Market
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has officially launched its investigation into the leasehold market today, June 11th 2019. In May, Andrea Coscelli, Chief Executive of the CMA, penned a letter to the committee chair of HCLGC emphasising the need to investigate the most onerous areas of leasehold property including permission fees, doubling ground rents […]
‘Smart’ Contracts in Conveyancing
Working in this part of the market, there’s a very large part of me that believes if others can develop ‘smart water’, then we should certainly be able to produce ‘smart contracts’ in conveyancing. Indeed, you have to wonder just how ‘smart’ the water really is, and whether those who are paying a premium for […]
SLC And UK Finance Collaborate To Standardise Lending Policies On Unexpired Leases
The Society of Licensed Conveyancers (SLC) and UK Finance have been working to standardise lending policies on unexpired lease terms to help ease the difficulties many leaseholders are finding when trying to resell their home. The SLC estimate that over 1 million leases have less than 80 years remaining. In the past decade, lenders have […]
Too Many Able Buyers Help Themselves To Help To Buy
Since the launch of the Help to Buy Equity Loan scheme in 2013, around 65,000 households or a third (31%) of people using the scheme could have purchased their home without using Help to Buy. Whilst one of the main aims of the scheme was to stimulate a stalling property market in the aftermath of […]
Search Acumen Comments On RICS Residential Market Survey
Andy Sommerville, Director of Search Acumen, comments: “The latest RICS UK Residential Survey results point to overall market trends remaining stagnant, with indicators on demand, supply and prices all falling within negative territory, albeit less so than previously. “Consumer confidence has been consistently subdued as uncertainty sweeps the UK. As a result, there are few […]
Cardiff-Based GlobalX Unveils Fresh Rebrand And Host of New Recruits
The future is bright for global information provider GlobalX, formerly, LegalinX-7side, following strong growth after a major rebrand and a host of new recruits. The company, which operates out of Cardiff, London, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, has seen demand for its services soar since the business was acquired by GlobalX in 2011. Now to be […]
TPO Issues Revised Codes Of Practice
At the start of June 2019, The Property Ombudsman (TPO) revised their Codes of Practice, so it could include the Tenant Fees Act 2019, Client Money Protection and GDPR requirements. Key revisions to the Sales Code include: Leasehold, commonhold & managed freehold disclosure: Agents’ obligations to request and divulge information relating to leasehold have been […]
LFS Conveyancing Awards’ Shortlist For Best Training Firm Category
The Law Firm Services Conveyancing Conference and gala dinner with awards ceremony have become a leading conveyancing event in the UK, with its array of innovative ideas, exhibitors and speakers. The 2019 event, which brings together the conveyancing industry to celebrate its achievements in the last 12 months, will take place on 18th September 2019 […]
Lawyer Checker Collaborates With Expert Conveyancing Search Provider
Lawyer Checker has joined forces with Searches UK, a property search specialist provider to law firms, to host an exclusive and informative webinar on the threat of cyber crime and fraud. Protecting your law firm from the risk of cyber attacks should be top of your agenda. According to HM Government, there are around 1400 […]
Lancashire Law Firm Shields Itself With Security Defence Trio
Lancashire based law firm, Houldsworth Solicitors have significantly enhanced their security risk framework by implementing an army of three new cyber risk products to defend itself from fraudulent activity. With two centuries of legal expertise, Houldsworth Solicitors understands the catastrophic implications of not having robust systems in place to mitigate the risk of fraud. To […]
RPSA Launch Quality Standards For Residential Surveying
Today, Wednesday 12th June 2019, the Residential Property Surveyors Association (RSPA) has announced the launch of the Certified Building Surveyor Scheme. The Scheme, which was launched at the RPSA’s annual conference, is unique and sets out quality and performance targets for the industry, ensuring that home buyers receive the highest possible service levels from their […]
Transactions Agreed Suggest Summer Property Price Increases
Agreed sales prices recorded throughout spring suggest that house prices are set to rise out of the Brexit blip and return to the levels of 2018. An analysis of the transactions agreed during April and May by Reallymoving places the company in a position of being able to forecast 12 weeks in advance of completions […]
Cybercrime In Conveyancing – How Can You Protect Your Clients?
According to new figures, around £470 billion is lost to cybercrime each year, and in 2018 alone over £354.3 million was stolen via authorised push payment fraud. Despite these troubling findings, it’s believed the legal sector isn’t adequately prepared to prevent or deal with cyber attacks. The conveyancing industry in particular is one of the […]
