With the government once again outlining its plans for revamping the way that we convey property in the UK Janine Wellington, Managing Director of Convey Law, is not convinced that the current system is altogether broken or needs a lot of fixing. With her Conveyancers achieving average freehold exchange timelines in under 10 weeks and Leasehold in under 14 weeks, we asked what the secret ingredient are to faster exchanges.
We get a lot of criticism as Conveyancers for being too slow, with every consultant and political party manifesto for the last decade making observations as to how to speed up the process for clients and to make it less stressful. The reality is that we already have the answers and our current system is not broken, it just requires some adaptation.
Our Conveyancers use the following methodology to ensure better than average residential transaction exchange timelines:
• Clients are onboarded through our online Convey365 IT portal – which has reduced welcome pack return timelines by 2 weeks.
• Client ID and Source of Funds and Proof of Wealth are dealt with immediately through the client portal – no last-minute pre-exchange checks required.
• Contracts are issued within 48 hours of the welcome pack being returned, with us raising enquiries with our clients on sale transactions – as opposed to waiting on caveat emptor.
• Searches are ordered as soon as the welcome pack is returned – our personal search providers never delay exchange for us.
• We’ve simplified and relied on specific enquiries taking a risk averse approach without being pedantic – reducing friction and avoiding delays.
• We report on the Contract, Title, Searches, Mortgage Offer, Leasehold MI, as soon as the information is received – reducing last minute pre-exchange enquiries.
• We chase and retrieve missing documents – keeping the transaction moving quickly to exchange.
• We look to put our clients in a position to exchange as soon as possible – and we try to lead the chain and exchange process.
• We project all exchanges at least a month in advance – so everyone – our clients, our introducers of business and all Conveyancers – know our proposal to exchange.
• The excellent Convey365 IT system helps our Conveyancers manage their caseloads – KPIs – File Management and client communication – speeding up the overall process.
Most great Conveyancers follow this protocol, diminishing the need for significant changes to the conveyancing process.
The electronic signature of deeds would help and HMLR need to find a solution to make this a reality on all cases, as opposed to alluding to the fact that they are making progress and have a solution. Conveyancers on either side of a transaction need to be able to decide how their clients execute the same document – electronically or traditionally – and this should make very little or no difference in practice to HMLR subject to required safety measures being in place but will allow for the universal adoption of electronic signatures.
There are few countries in the world that support chain transactions, where several clients can sell and buy and move house on the same day.
The system isn’t broken – we just need to look how to make the best of it with conveyancers being at the heart of the decision-making process.