Dwelling on Net gains

The land registry e-conveyancing task force plans to have a pilot running by 2006.

Yet doubts remain over whether the security for such a system will be foolproof, Mark Smulian reports

Fewer than ten years ago, the Internet was the preserve of academics and a few enthusiasts, but will solicitors use it for conveyancing as a matter of course ten years from now? The Land Registry thinks they will, and so do members of the profession who are keenest on the spread of electronic services.

If they are right, what will the conveyancing solicitor of 2013 be doing? Indeed, will he still be in business?

Results of an exhaustive consultation by the Land Registry, published in March, found 'no new fears', says Steve Kelway, general counsel to its e-conveyancing task force, but it found plenty of old fears about the security of such a system (see [2003] Gazette, 20 March, 3).

He hopes to have a pilot running by 2006, 'when we need to have a system everyone can have faith in'.

A full-scale system would be a few years beyond that.

'It is a tool to make it easier to do conveyancing,' he says.

'It is fair to say that we do not have all the answers on security, which is always a serious concern.'

Mr Kelway insists that in itself e-conveyancing is not intended to prevent conveyancing work remaining the preserve of solicitors.

Indeed, he maintains that the technical skills needed will hamper the public who do their own conveyancing.

But could there be long-term pressure on the solicitors' virtual monopoly from other professions that provide electronic services?

He says: 'It could happen, but whether there is pressure from, say, Tesco, to do conveyancing is not a matter for us.'

The only fly in the ointment for the registry is that asked when e-conveyancing should be made compulsory, 30% of solicitors polled for the consultation replied 'never'.

'We obviously still have a lot of work to do to explain that this will help solicitors and has not just come about because the government thinks everything electronic is a grand idea,' Mr Kelway says.

One e-conveyancing enthusiast is Denis Cameron, chairman of the Law Society's conveyancing and land law committee, and a partner with Blackpool firm Cameron & Ball.

'If I can do it, anyone can,' he says.

'For the high street solicitor, it offers a great advantage over the factory conveyancers.

We can go to clients' homes, open a laptop, and show them exactly what is going on.'

He sees his job as making sure that e-conveyancing is as accessible as possible, and adds that 'anyone can afford the hardware now'.

His enthusiasm is shared by Mark Slade, managing partner of Fidler & Pepper, a pioneering Nottinghamshire practice which, he admits, was saved by computers.

Originally a typical high street office, it operated in a former mining area that was hit hard by the recession in the early 1990s.

Mr Slade says: 'We had to use IT to stay in business.

Now, we receive conveyancing work from all over the country through panels.'

He doubts that e-conveyancing is a threat to high street firms, but thinks that the spread of estate agent panels - sending work to firms such as his - could become one as regular high street practices without a national reach are squeezed out.

A different view comes from Wendy Hewstone, of Southampton firm Hannides Hewstone.

She complains: 'The Land Registry is fine as it is.

It can turn things around in two days if we have done everything right, so why do we need e-conveyancing?

'People are obsessed with speed but we do priority searches and there is no problem at present.'

Having installed broadband Internet access at some expense, Ms Hewstone fears that e-conveyancing will demand yet more costly investment, putting two-partner firms like hers - which pride themselves on personal service - at a price disadvantage against bulk conveyancers.

David Parton, operations partner based in the Northampton office of regional firm Shoosmiths - one of the factory conveyancers - says: 'For residential sales, conveyancing has become a commoditised service with the spread of firms which charge a fixed fee, conditional on a sale.

'There was research for the Council of Mortgage Lenders last year [showing] that 20% of homes are bought and sold by solicitors who do not meet clients face to face.

'This is a better way, because the clients get regular reports that they can study at leisure.

In traditional high street firms, the clients see little of what is going on until they are called into a meeting near the end of the process, and given a huge quantity of documents that they might not understand.' He predicts that IT costs will continue to fall, and advises opponents of e-conveyancing that there is no point in any part of the profession trying to go against the tide.

One factor crucial to the future success of e-conveyancing is to make sure that everyone is happy to accept electronic signatures - a secure code that firms can send to one another to authenticate their identity.

Clients will at some point have to sign on paper that they authorise their solicitor to sign on their behalf electronically.

This has raised fears that go beyond the perennial ones about sending confidential information over the Internet.

Ms Hewstone is not happy.

'I am very worried about security.

Look at what happened last year with the Inland Revenue Web site where people were able to get others' personal data,' she says.

'That should be one of the most secure sites there is, so if that can be hacked, how will the Land Registry stop it?'

Mr Parton says these concerns are overblown.

'The public has shown it is happy to do banking and insurance over the Internet, and people put chargeable credit card information there, so the concept of an electronic signature is almost one step back from where we are anyway.'

But he admits that security is a big issue, and that there is no framework yet that can be tested for efficacy.

'We would not want to expose our liability unless we were certain,' he says.

Mr Cameron recognises the seriousness of the security issue, but says: 'What could be more insecure than a fax? And we use those.

I think it is just fear of the future.'

In recognising these concerns, the Law Society has commissioned Trustis, a consultancy that specialises in e-business security, to undertake a study into on-line security technologies as an initial step in its work on this issue.

The Land Registry ultimately wants a 'chain matrix' so that everyone can see where everyone else is in a chain.

This depends on them all being on-line and willing to trust the system with confidential information about transactions.

Peter Sizer, the National Land Information Service's (NLIS) central government co-ordinator - on secondment from the Land Registry - is convinced this is possible.

NLIS is the electronic service which collates information on property from all the relevant sources.

Solicitors can access it through three commercial channels called TM Property Services, Searchflow and Transaction Online.

Mr Sizer says: 'If in a chain even one person is not on-line, it will be less efficient, but it can still work.

NLIS collectively aggregates the information from the channels and it can be done.'

NLIS uses MacDonald Dettwiler, a company whose electronic security experience includes running Canada's radar system, to operate its 'hub', where all its information streams meet.

'Security is fundamental, we must know who we are dealing with,' he says.

Mr Sizer says the NLIS search system is already a good working example of electronic services helping the profession.

'Talk to any solicitor who uses NLIS and they will say there is never any downtime.

The product has proved robust.'

Today's solicitors may have to learn new skills for e-conveyancing, but tomorrow's conveyancers will see radical changes in their training.

Robert Abbey, the Law Society's chief external conveyancing examiner, says: 'If you are going to train potential users, you have to train them on-line.

It will be expensive to equip them with the IT.

It will no longer be possible to teach through conventional seminars as everyone present would need a laptop.' Mr Abbey predicts that those most at risk are not high street solicitors but their secretaries, as solicitors may find they can perform more tasks electronically for themselves.

He says: 'Conveyancers tend by nature to be conservative with a small c, but I think they will see the advantages of the Internet.'

Mark Smulian is a freelance journalist