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A couple of years ago I spent some while promoting an escrow system. I raised the possibility with a representative of the SRA. We were told in categoric terms that, if the solicitors had any control over when the payments were made, then it would be a client account under the solicitors control with all that entailed, which entirely negated the benefit of such a system. In fact our system involved payments preauthorised by the client, and triggered by events. Even so, it is interesting to note that the idea is back in the frame.
Our costings were carefully worked out and came to £93.00 per transaction for a firm undertaking 100 transactions a year. On a time analysis the amount of time saved by the conveyancers meant it was cheaper than a client account on the assumption that it ceased to be necessary to comply with the solicitors accounts rules.