My interest was drawn to the content of an article recently appearing in the Law Society Gazette by Catherine Baksi (www.lawgazette.co.uk/news)
The author in the article reports on the news that experts forecast an end to redundancies among conveyancing solicitors. Clearly good news for lawyers.
Paul Marsh, lead Law Society spokesman on property, is quoted as saying he expects low transaction volumes and seems to agree with me about the reasons for the problem, by pointing to anxiety over unemployment and ‘less appealing mortgage deals’ as the main contributing factors. He also expects the looming general election and the world cup as events that are likely to deter people from moving home.
Nothing new there, and it is refreshing to see a major stakeholder not using the opportunity to make the ridiculous claim (unlike some) that the cost of home information packs is also acting as a deterrent.
More interestingly however, is the advice Mr Marsh gives to his fellow solicitors telling them they need to do all they can to ‘........drive their costs down and improve efficiency’.
Good advice Mr Marsh, and one way of achieving this would, in my view, be to look at organising tasks within the conveyancing process and to delegate the more administrative tasks, such as form filling, to the army of energy assessors throughout the Country who are required, and who will continue notwithstanding a change in Government, to engage with sellers when carrying out the energy performance certificate inspection.
Furthermore, there is a need for a cost effective information technology solution, similar to the ones that currently exist within the Home Information Pack industry, which allows the seller solicitor to publish electronically documents and information to a viewing portal, so as to allow the buyer’s solicitor to view and download this material. This saves on paper; it avoids the delay of the DX and Royal Mail postal systems and is far more cost effective.
The same technology also allows the seller to upload documents and complete forms on line again saving time and money.
It’s a shame that the Law Society has not in the past chosen to give its support to the Home Information Pack Industry. If the Society had forged a closer relationship they would have witnessed the establishment of solid infrastructures as well as the introduction and implementation of sound and cost effective IT systems.
I am sure it’s not too late though, and I am sure the HIP Industry would be happy to share their experience and ideas with solicitors and work with the Law Society to find ways to improve efficiency and reduce costs.
I agree whole heartedly that the sale and purchase process needs much streamlining to imporve efficiency and take out cost. As a DEA I often have conversations with sellers around the subject of duplication of information provision. The worst (best) example is the estate agent collects the vendors and property details, then the HIP provider collects virtually the same information and then low and behold the solicitor often not only asks for this information but also insists on procuring their own searches duplicating what the client has already paid for.
ReplyDeleteThen you have the esate agent who goes to the house to familiarise themselves with the property and confirm the vendors ID etc; an essential visit, and this is often combined with taking the photographs, but not always.
Then the DEA arrives to carry out the EPC survey, then someone comes to measure up for a floorplan.
Not the most efficient process when one considers that as a DEA I am drawing an accurate floorplan of the property as part of the EPC. Also because I use a pda to record the survey with a little extra effort I can create the "The Property Details" in a basic format. During my visit I can also take a full set of photographs and / or photographs for a Virtual Tour.
The problem is that most estate agents just cannot get into the "efficiency" game so vendors have to be available several times at the begining of the sale process when in reality probably only two visits are required and if they are lucky the estate agent familiarisation visit and my DEA visit to do the rest can occur concurrently.
To sum up "You can take a Dinosaur to water..........