The LFS Conveyancing Conference 2019 Round Up
This year’s must-see event for all conveyancers, the Law Firm Services Conveyancing Conference and Awards (LFS) certainly did not disappoint with an array of industry speakers refreshing existing knowledge and enlightening the audience, whilst also collaborating and conversing with professionals in the conveyancing world.
Taking place at the Vox Conference Centre in Birmingham, the main conference was held between 9.00am – 4.30pm, followed by the prestigious annual awards ceremony, where industry professionals came together to celebrate the hard work and success of top conveyancers and firms in England and Wales.
Intelligent environmental data property analysts, Groundsure, returned to the conference as headline sponsor once again who had proudly announced with LFS last year a record number of over 400 tickets sold.
The 2019 LFS Conveyancing Conference is the largest event in the conveyancing calendar. With a host of innovative ideas, exhibitors and speakers this event was key for any firm or individual which works in a significant conveyancing department.
The conference commenced, most importantly, with substance, breakfast and networking with Groundsure in the Vox foyer followed by a welcome and introduction from LFS’ sales director, Richard Mathias in the main hall to set the scene for the day.
Main sponsor, Groundsure kicked off the event, followed by one of the UK’s leading Sales and Marketing experts and returning key note speaker, Grant Le Boff from Sticky Marketing Club with his marketing masterclass, advising how firms can position themselves for future success.
Grant educates delegates that professional services need to invest in branding, differentiation is the silver bullet and branding will help you be distinctive to your target market. He advised that firms must target their smallest viable market that is going to hit commercials.
Expert property analyst and CEO of Rummaged4Property, Anthony Codling, was next in line to talk on ‘Which way now for the housing market’ where he gave his expert view of how the housing market will fair in the months and years ahead. During his talk he asked the delegates to vote on pertinent issues, one of which was whether they thought Brexit will lead to a bigger shock than the credit crunch. The room was optimistic as 93% disagreed.
Anthony confirmed there is a fear of unemployment amongst the British people but average house prices are still going up steadily but fewer people are willing to sell their houses and require a higher price. He is also not convinced of online estate agencies, even though Yopa and Purple Bricks are the only online companies left standing. Anthony recently studied over 7,500 estate agency brands, where data revealed that they are selling 7 out of 10 houses – with 62% selling less than 50% of the homes they marketed.
The morning’s agenda ended with a conveyancing masterclass including panellists, hosted by Stephen Ward, director of strategy and external relations for the specialist property law regulator, Council For licensed Conveyancers (CLC). According to conveyancers, expanding the use of IT will be the biggest opportunity in the sector, whilst a poll from the delegates of the conference revealed Brexit, a downturn in the property market and cyber crime as the top three risks for businesses in the next 12 months. CLC agreed in part with the delegates as they believed it was Brexit, cyber crime but also fraud/money laundering too.
When the transparency rules were introduced in December 2018, most people thought it would be a race to the bottom on price, but Ward reported over a third of conveyancers increased their prices to June this year – and over a third expect to increase prices over the next 12 months.
The poll continued with delegates believing consumers do shop around more before choosing a conveyancer and that most importantly consumers needed to have much more awareness of ‘transaction length’ which needed addressing across the sector.
Competition Market Authority (CMA) will be investigating transparency further in the near future to ensure compliancy across the industry.
Stephen revealed the CLC inspection findings, issuing figures of how many members are compliant, generally compliant and non-compliant – continuing with CLC’s Regulatory Supervision Managers, Reena Saimbi and Kevin Morgan – talking about their inspection audit findings, problems raised by conveyancers, complaints they receive from clients and how they help their members achieve compliance.
Jon Sacker, Deputy Director of Communications at CLC finds it most interesting how conveyancers are ‘developing’ and what technology will bring to the table. He said there is a ‘real interest’ in investing in staff too which is good for CLC and the firm. Sacker said “As a regulator we want our members to be successful.”
After lunch and more networking, key note speaker, Chris Handford, director of regulatory policy at Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) said there are more virtual law firms than ever and conveyancers share the majority (85%-90%) of the market but are mainly small firms.
Chris confirmed the new SRA Standards and Regulations comes out on 25 November with a significant reduction in length, from 450 pages to 130 pages.
Influenced by the CMA, law firms publish price and service information, along with details of how to complain on their websites to give better information to consumers. The SRA have provided a clickable SRA logo for their members to install on their website which verifies to their customers that they are a real firm. This logo will become compulsory in November following the release of the new SRA Standards and Procedures. A new digital register about firms and solicitors is also housed in one place on SRA’s website which allows quick and easy access to information on their members.
Regarding Anti-Money Laundering Regulations, Handford further confirmed that they are still seeing high levels of non-compliance. As a result, supervision and enforcement activity has increased and new regulations are on the way soon, but more information will be publicised in the Autumn.
A panel debate followed with leading lenders including Nationwide, Lloyds Banking Group, Santander, Coventry and Barclays, chaired by Lender Exchange. Conveyancers from the audience drilled the panel on pertinent issues regarding panel membership and mortgage processing issues they faced.
A quick coffee break led to the final key note speaker, the Sunday Times Economist, David Smith about ‘the economy, Brexit and all that’ with his unique view of the world economy and what effects he expects Brexit will have on all our lives.
Smith told the audience that only 18 months ago the world was optimistic and firing on all cyclinders. However, the brakes are firmly on because of Trump with the trade wars damaging the US and the rest of the world, hurting the world economy and indirectly the British economy too.
The financial crisis of 2008/09 was described as 1 in a 100 year crisis, so even though growth has slowed, it is not a global recession or crisis but is still a disappointing economic growth nonetheless.
We are expecting a 2-2.5% growth a year but according to Office For Budget Responsibility the latest projection in the next few years is 1.5%.
But the property sector remains robust, with new build strong and the Help To Buy scheme transforming the market by helping first time buyers get on the property ladder.
However, housing transactions are still flat and a big slow down in house-price inflation. Smith confirmed the housing market outlook could go three ways; assuming a smooth Brexit, we will see a gradual pick up as normality returns and uncertainty disappears; a no deal will send shock waves through the housing market, where house prices will fall causing a depressed market; or a much bigger house price shock where they would fall 30%-40% which Smith says is possible but unlikely.
Conveyancers and other professionals in the sector certainly left the highly engaging and informative conference with a lot to digest and think about in an ever evolving industry.
