Conveyancers report 15 per cent rise in workloads

Conveyancing workloads increased by an average of 15 per cent last year, a national survey of 350 solicitors and licensed conveyancers has indicated.

A comfortable majority, 59 per cent, said transactions had gone up, while only 7 per cent said they had seen levels fall. The survey was carried out earlier this month for property search provider SearchFlow.

Almost three quarters of conveyancers said the burden of compliance, whether from the SRA, Lexcel or CQS, had increased the amount of work firms needed to do in order to maintain standards. Only 2 per cent said it had decreased.

In response, 46 per cent of firms said they were trying to manage this extra work with the same resources, while 22 per cent were devoting more resources to compliance.

Panel selection was seen as the main threat to conveyancing work in the course of the next year.

More than a quarter, 27 per cent, of conveyancers gave this as the biggest threat, closely followed by the 21 per cent who were concerned about the weak property market.

A significant minority, 15 per cent, saw the increasing cost of insurance as the main threat, while smaller groups cited competition from ABSs, commoditisation, and the increased risk of liability.

Marshall King (pictured), chief executive of SearchFlow, said: "The fact that panel selection and market weakness is top of mind for many solicitor firms probably indicates that security of incoming business remains the overall top concern - which reinforces the lack of clear confidence in the market recovery".

Most firms, 63 per cent, said they did not know whether their firms would consider becoming an ABS, while 25 per cent said they would not be considering it.

A narrow majority of conveyancers, 51 per cent, said the controversy over panel management had caused lenders to worry more about fraud.