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Perhaps I have missed something but I cannot see what difference this system will make.

I see that is allows for documents to be passed electronically from seller's conveyancer to buyer's, but email can do this already.

It will allow parties to know what is going on - any conveyancers worth their salt already know what is going on on their own file. The agents can log in if they pay a fee to join (it will be interesting to see if anyone has asked the estate agents whether they plan to) but can just get the update with a phone call anyway.

The clients can get an update online, but most will call or email for an update now. I accept that it means they can get the update at midnight when they suddenly want to know what is going on, but at the moment most want to chase for something while a firm is open to actually do something about it.

It will give you reminders to do work, but it will be interesting to know if it takes account of what other work you need to do and waiting times - are you going to be chased on it when you are waiting for searches/mortgage offers/clients to reply to enquiries.

It will produce an audit trail of communication - sorry but isn't that what our files are for that we are made to keep for years?

The only benefit I can see from it is for when you tell a client that you are waiting for the other side they can log in and see you are waiting for the other side! If there is a delay the portal is not going to fix that and it is not going to force someone to reply when they are not. All it is going to do is increase the pressure on firms to churn matters out more quickly so they are not seen as 'holding it up' by those logging in most likely at the risk of doing a proper and thorough job.

If the other side are not subscribed then all this will be pointless anyway.

I would also be interested to see how they plan to charge. If we have to pay a fee for it then that would have to be charged back to the client and given how costs driven a lot are now are we sure the public will want to pay for using the system?

There seems to be an awful lot of issues that I am not sure they have actually dealt with.