Improving Residential Conveyancing

The results of the Law Society's consultation were disclosed at a meeting held at the end of November 2009. The results of this consultation and the papers submitted to the meeting can be viewed by following the link below.

The meeting discussed what might be the strategic opportunities and threats for law firms and other relevant organisations if the Law Society were to introduce a Residential Conveyancing Membership Scheme covering registered and unregistered, freehold and leasehold residential conveyancing in which:

• membership can be achieved by all types of residential conveyancing firms including home workers through an electronic points-based application process with some rights of appeal;
  
• members will use standardised documents and protocols including 'completion-ready' packs, sign-up to a public client charter, meet minimum technology requirements and use a central 'portal' to communicate with other members during transactions; they will also follow rigorous processes for vetting all existing and new members of staff;
  
• annual renewal of membership will be subject to maintaining a satisfactory scheme complaints record, an adequate points score and satisfactory performance on periodic file reviews by trained accreditators.

The meeting felt that an Accreditation Scheme for Residential Conveyancing should be created and that key to its success would be setting the bar for entry at a suitable level so that the scheme is credible yet membership achievable by the majority of firms with higher levels of attainment being set as the scheme progressed.  It was also acknowledged that a Portal would be essential for the on-line interchange of documents between the various parties. collaboration with case management suppliers would be key to the success of any on-line system and that it would be highly likely that the system would fail if it were not integrated with existing software.  It was also acknowledged that any system should involve OSCRE (PISCES).

The meeting debated as to whether the Law Society was the organisation to run an accreditation scheme and much questioning as to whether another commercial organisation would proceed with something if the Society were to delay.  It is possible that any scheme would also be extended to Licensed Conveyancers, therefore covering all legal property professionals.

The LSSA (Legal Software Suppliers Association) are now being consulted and case management software vendors are being considered key to the success of any electronic solution. Further news on this subject as and when we get it!

Links to documents provided at the meeting

http://www.easyconvey.com/pr/TheLawSociety-ImprovingResidentialConveyancing.pdf

http://www.easyconvey.com/pr/HMLandRegistry-ImprovingResidentialConveyancing.pdf

http://www.easyconvey.com/pr/ImprovingResidentialConveyancing-SummaryofResponses.pdf

We wish all our users a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

The office will be closed from 5:30on the 23rd December 2009 and re-open at 9:00 on 4th January 2010. Any priority problems during this period please email: support@easyconvey.com and we will deal with the issue as soon as possible.

Photo shows Church Street, Godalming, Surrey.

Maria's CASA Tips:

We are able to check the passport details of foreign nationals via our client I D service providers However this has to be done by us outside of CASA, at the moment. We have recently carried out checks on people from Hong Kong, Ireland and Hungary. Forward as much information as you have to us and we will carry out the check and forward the results to you. The cost is the standard £2.20 per check per person which also includes the sanctions and PEP check. Contact any member of the support team to order a check.

News from the Support Team:

Please note that the VAT rate will be returning to 17.5% on the 1st January and the Stamp duty "holiday" will also expire on the 1st January 2010. We have sent out two emails with an update to the fees and costs area, together with instructions on how to apply this.

Please ensure that you have applied the VAT update program and have followed the instructions by the 4th January 2010. If you need any help in applying the update then please contact the support team. As time is limited now we suggest that if you need help you book this in with the support team today.

News from the Development Team:

The end of January beginning of February will see a planned major update to CASA. We will be reviewing the Track-A-Matter service and will be introducing some new features for the Track-A-Matter service as well as updating the Land Registry offices links. We will confirm in the next news letter when this will be available.

Although the Land Registry has announced the next phase of their e-conveyancing solution they have not revised the costs for end users wanting to use their services through their case management system. We have decided that there is no point in carrying out more work on this project until such time as the fees they are charging have reached a sensible level.

Decmber 2009.