Eddie Goldsmith, chairman of the Conveyancing Association and senior partner at law firm Goldsmith Williams, explains about the conveyancing process, which is the legal part of any house buying and selling transaction
Like all new experiences, buying a home for the first time opens us up to a whole new world we previously barely even knew existed – and certainly never really thought about.
It’s a complicated process full of new terms, new systems, new rules and new regulations, it involves various bodies of all sorts of shapes and sizes, and it can be difficult to understand.
Central to the property transaction process however is the conveyancer. Without conveyancing the sale will usually not happen; which brings me rather neatly on to my first point: what exactly is a conveyancer?
What is a conveyancer?
In simple terms, a conveyancer is the person whose job it is to legally transfer home ownership from the seller to the buyer. This is known as the conveyancing process.
It is worth mentioning at this point that it is possible for buyers to handle the conveyancing process for themselves – although the occurrence of this is rare, not least because it can only be done if the buyer has not taken out a mortgage loan (not to mention the fact that it is incredibly time consuming!).
In most cases, however, both the buyer and the seller ‘instruct’ (or in other words, appoint) a conveyancer once an offer on a property has been accepted by the seller. The conveyancers will then handle all the legal aspects of the transaction from that point – right up until the buyer is handed the keys to their new property.
What is the difference between a licensed conveyancer and a conveyancing solicitor?
There are two types of conveyancers – licensed conveyancers and conveyancing solicitors.
The difference between the two lies in the nature of their qualifications: solicitors are qualified lawyers who have had extensive training in many aspects of the law but who have chosen to follow a career in property law specifically. A licensed conveyancer, on the other hand, has received specialist training in property law only – and is not able to practice outside this remit.
It follows that they are regulated by different bodies – solicitors by the Solicitors Regulatory Authority (SRA) and licensed conveyancers by the Council for Licensed Conveyancers (CLC). Should you ever have any complaints it is these respective organisations that you should approach.
The type of conveyancer you instruct is by no means an indication of the quality of their work – there are some fantastic conveyancing solicitors out there and there are, similarly, some fantastic licensed conveyancers to be found. There are terrible examples of each, too.
While neither variation is necessarily any better or worse than the other, a point to consider here is that solicitors who practice conveyancing can be slightly more expensive than a licensed conveyancer.
Having said this, I should reiterate that cost should not be the overriding factor in your choice and it should certainly not put you off approaching solicitors’ firms regarding their conveyancing services. More often than not these employ in-house licensed conveyancers to carry out their conveyancing work anyway and costs usually reflect this.
What should be done if brokers or lenders say the borrower has to use their conveyancer?
If you have secured a mortgage your lender will more often than not have a list of ‘approved’ conveyancers from which they will ask you to make your choice.
What this means is that the conveyancers included on a lender’s list will have all met the lender’s requirements and are trusted to carry out a good job on the transaction.
Requirements will often include membership of the Conveyancing Quality Scheme (CQS), an industry initiative to ensure good practise, or that a conveyancer uses a certain IT system to carry out its work – however, these will vary from lender to lender.
In many ways this is a good thing (it helps narrow down the time you need to spend looking for a conveyancer anyway!).
What is a lender’s conveyancing panel?
A lender’s conveyancing panel is a group of lawyers whose job it is to liaise with the conveyancers involved in a housing transaction, once a mortgage has been approved and an offer on a property accepted.
They often have a list of preferred conveyancers from which they ask buyers to choose in order to ensure that the transaction runs as smoothly as possible.
How should you go about finding a conveyancer/solicitor who is right for you?
Your estate agent will almost certainly recommend a conveyancer for you. This is advice you absolutely do not have to follow, should you not want to – it is however (if not in any other way) useful in so far as it provides you with an idea of what you should be looking for.
A good starting point when looking for a conveyancer is to have a look at what ‘badges of honour’ they might display. Look out for membership of the Conveyancing Quality Scheme (CQS) and/or membership of the Conveyancing Association (CA), for example.
Membership of both CQS and the CA gives a customer a good indication that a firm is not only trustworthy and dependable but also dedicated to raising industry standards – and providing you with the best service possible.
What does membership of the CQS mean?
This is a Law Society initiative – the Conveyancing Quality Scheme scheme “provides a recognised quality standard for residential conveyancing practices”.
In order to be admitted as a CQS member, the firm is assessed on the following criteria:
- the integrity of the senior responsible officer and other key conveyancing staff;
- the firm’s adherence to good practice management standards;
- and adherence to prudent and efficient conveyancing procedures through the scheme’s protocol.
These are all brought under scrutiny before an applicant is approved – or otherwise. Membership of CQS indicates to regulators, lenders, insurers and, arguably most importantly, consumers that a conveyancer has met an acceptable level of competency, and can therefore be trusted.
What role does the Conveyancing Association play?
The Conveyancing Association is a non-profit-making body representing conveyancing operations throughout the UK with a view to shaping the future of conveyancing. We are a major presence in the sector, our members carry out over two thirds of all UK mortgaging work and one in seven of all property transactions in the UK. That includes nine out of the top 10 conveyancing firms in the country and over a third of the top 100.
We campaign on issues that matter to our clients and our focus is to ensure that our customers get the best possible service.
In December 2013, the CA published the results of a survey which found that consumers believed almost a quarter (23 per cent) of all home purchases or sales made in the previous five years had fallen through due to delays caused by poor communication between lawyers, lenders and estate agents.
The results also found that there were increasing concerns about unforeseen delays and that better communication between the solicitor or conveyancer, the lender and the estate agent would significantly speed up the process.
The CA has sought to tackle this problem and make the conveyancing process more efficient. We brought together industry leaders – Connells, Move with Us, Countrywide and LSL Property Services – to develop the CA Protocol.
The Protocol collates guidance from the Law Society, the CLC, the Legal Ombudsman, the Council of Mortgage Lenders and case law, providing licensed conveyancers and solicitors with a single point of reference for best practice, for the very first time.
We believe sharing best practice in this way could shorten the length of time it takes to undergo a house transaction by up to five working days. We also believe that it will ultimately enable licensed conveyancers and solicitors to provide their customers with a better service.
This is just one example of how the CA is bringing conveyancers together to solve problems and improve services for customers. Buying a property is probably one of the biggest decisions anyone will make and there’s often a lot of money at stake. Having a conveyancer you can trust and rely on makes all the difference.
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