Solicitors ‘should enter into partnership with estate agents’
The future for the conveyancing market in England and Wales lies in partnerships between solicitors and estate agents to provide a one-stop shop for sellers, the new president of the E-Homebuying Forum has told the Gazette.
Sir Bryan Carsberg, who is also a former director of the Office of Fair Trading, said he would like to see solicitors and estate working together, as they do in Scotland.
Carsberg said he would also like to see estate agents regulated, so that customers know what standards to expect and have some form of redress when things go wrong.
Carsberg said: ‘The Scottish system, where solicitors employ estate agents, works well.’ He added that customers would benefit from a one-stop shop if solicitors in England and Wales went into partnership with estate agents and others involved in the conveyancing process.
‘When you see the links that some solicitors and estate agents already have, multi-disciplinary partnerships are surely the next step? They are coming, but they are taking their time,’ he said.
Carsberg said: ‘With the current arrangements, there’s a feeling that estate agents and solicitors are wary of each other. If they were working in the same firm they would be pulling in the same direction.’
He predicted solicitors would play a ‘big part in a new vigorous and competitive market’, and suggested preliminary and binding contracts between vendors and purchasers could be entered into at the offer and acceptance stage, which lawyers would be at the centre of.
Law Society property spokesman Paul Marsh said: ‘I’d like to see solicitors taking advantage of all the opportunities open over the next two or three years to be able to sell property and give clients a one-stop shop.’
But he said the only way that will be achieved is for there to be the same degree of regulation for estate agents as there is for solicitors, which ‘means estate agents have to be regulated’.
Richard Barnett, chairman of the Law Society’s conveyancing and land law committee and senior partner at volume conveyancing firm Barnetts, said: ‘A one-stop shop is a great idea. That’s what we already do, working in partnership with estate agents. The Legal Services Act will make the arrangements much easier.’
Marketing director at MDA SearchFlow David Kempster said: ‘Alternative business structures represent significant threats or opportunities, depending on the appetite to be reactive or proactive.’
‘Online connected processes, including streamlined data and document management, will be key to protecting margins, and onward survival. An ABS structure, together with access to venture capital and a hybrid of skills in a group within the ABS, could form a potent mix, delivering local expertise to counter the national brand assault,’ he said.
Comments
We have to be careful of conflict of interest.
An arrangement of this type has a huge potential for conflict of interest. As a conveyancing solicitor of 7 years pqe working mainly in the volume conveyancing sector, I can already see the potential for conflict of interest that already exists in the current introducer setups between estate agents and solicitors.
The estate agent's main priority is selling the property as quickly as possible for the maximum price. To this end they have their own panel of solicitors that they pass work to having 'bullied' the buyer into using their recommended solicitors. The estate agent then proceeds to try and pressurise the solicitor into completing the transaction as quickly as possible regardless of any problems that there might be with the property. I have had estate agents complaining that too many enquiries have been raised and when the reason for the enquiries has been explained (for example, on a leasehold property a s20 notice had just been issued and the sellers solicitors were unable to produce a copy) - they complain that the solicitor is being too finicky and you then get a call to the senior partner of the firm threatening to take the firm off the panel!! Another instance was when I was seconded to a smaller branch of my firm ( a small country branch), where the branch had a close relationship with the local estate agents. I was asked to act on behalf of the purchaser and my colleague in the residential department of my firm, was acting for the seller. After studying the title etc, I raised the usual enquiries with my colleague acting for the seller and was promptly reprimanded by the estate agents - they didn't expect me to raise enquiries, after all we all [the seller's solicitor and my self ] worked for the same firm; incidentally I was also reprimanded by my firm for raising enquiries - as 'that was not the way it was usually done and I had upset the estate agent, who didn't like fuss over such trivia as planning and building regulation issues' (in this case it was uPVC windows on a listed building!).
With fees being at record lows and the market becoming more and more dominated by volume conveyancing firms with introducer agreements with the estate agents, the pressure to 'keep in with the estate agent' is becoming ever greater - and in my experience is at the expense of the professional judgment of the solicitor who should be acting solely in the interest of their client but are becoming more and more under pressure to act in the interest of the estate agent. As an assistant solicitor I have been put under pressure not to draw the attention of the buyer ( in this case a cash buyer) a defect in the title to a property, not only by the estate agent but also by the residential partner of the firm (who had been yelled at by the manager of the estate agency) - I was told that the particular estate agency provided us [the firm] with a large amount of work and we could not afford to lose this work; I stood my ground and said that the partner was welcome to take the file over if they wished- but I did not feel able to compromise on my duty to the client.
I cannot see how a integration of a law firm with an estate agency can work in the best interests of the client: The interests of the estate agency ( and therefore the law firm if they are integrated) is to sell the property as quickly as they can and at the best price. The interest of the client is to buy a property which is fully marketable and free of defects that would affect their security - not a 'pup' with hidden horrors!
volume conveyancers
If we could rid the market of volume conveyancers and bascically anyone not with a legal qualification then the standard of conveyancing would go up. Those outfits have a lot to answer for.
Higher PI for everyone because those outfits only care about speed too, and fast bulk profit.
These outfits are the worst conveyancers there could be. Shall we make a list of the firms, we all can name 10. Their names are usually the sign they are rubbish.
Get the trash out of the market then maybe partnerships need not be relevant.
Can you name the Top 10
Can you name the Top 10 please? Would love to hear your obviously biased views. Strikes me that a few solicitors are worried at how they can maintain their high profits themselves. If they were good and delivered quality customer service at a better speed at a price commensurate with their ability then there surely would be no need to for clients to instruct volume conveyancers. It is such a shame that the vast majority of the public chose volume conveyancing because they get their calls returned, have constant updates and have a clear communication channel - not forgetting quicker exchanges - yet their last experience of "High Street, non volume conveyancing" was so poor that they felt that it is wiser to go through their Agents choice.I am sure if your firm is good then you will survive, if you are not then perhaps the forces of basic economics means that you won't.
Here's to free choice!
Ooh yes
please can we get the trash out of the market, and can we include in that the solicitors who delay transactions through inefficieny and outdated systems, writing letters instead of picking up the phone, refusing to communicate via email. Not to mention those who perceive the conveyancing transaction as a contentious sport. Clients are so badly served by solicitors who dabble in conveyancing looking for problems rather than solutions. To be able to deal with transaction quickly and efficiently you seriously cannot be popping out to Court ... not in this day and age.
The answer ..
the case stated is a classic example why agents and conveyancers should work together! If it was a combined agent/solicitor firm then it woukd be the agents indemnity insurance policy on the line and they would be less likely to flaunt the rules ... they certainly going to great lengths to avoid Property Misdescriptions fines so why would this be any different?
The answer ..
the case stated is a classic example why agents and conveyancers should work together! If it was a combined agent/solicitor firm then it woukd be the agents indemnity insurance policy on the line and they would be less likely to flaunt the rules ... they certainly going to great lengths to avoid Property Misdescriptions fines so why would this be any different?
If it hasn't happened already there's probably a reason
As far as I am aware Scottish solicitors do not "employ estate agents", rather they act as estate agents themselves.
In principle there is no reason why English solicitors should not do this. They have the great advantage of a captive source of property sales from probate and divorce business.
But they don't do it. Why not? Probably because they still have some vestiges of professionalism and a unique insight into what a dirty business estate agency in England and Wales is. All practitioners could echo the previous commentator's experiences.
So is the answer more regulation of estate agents? Of course not, the clients do not want it. Estate Agents may be loathsome people that everybody professes to detest but they generate the essential fuel for transactions - money, and preferably as much as possible, at a competitive commission rate payable after the deal is done.
The fact that selling agents are legally allowed to rip off the buyer with commissions on financial products contributes to keeping the price down for the seller. Win, win. No way could solicitors do that.
The great and the good know very little about the realities of conveyancing, unfortunately.
I think it's still in the Law of Property Act 1925 somewhere that contract clauses fettering the choice of a solicitor are void and maybe even criminal.
Maybe the OFT could look at enforcing that or even widening its scope.
I agree that whilst a good
I agree that whilst a good idea in theory there has to be great care so as not to create a conflict of interest.
I suppose when ABSs are
I suppose when ABSs are allowed it would be easier for consortia of solicitors to obtain external funding to buy up estate agency chains.