Conveyancing portal pilots to start next year

Testing of the Law Society's plans for an electronic conveyancing portal are to begin "as soon as possible next year", Jonathan Smithers, chairman of the society's conveyancing and land law committee, has said.

Smithers, who is also deputy vice president, said lots of firms had volunteered to take part in the pilots, which would take place across England and Wales, and include big and small practices.

"I hope that this is the future of conveyancing," Smithers said. "It's not acceptable any more for clients to have to use a paper format for everything.

"I think the portal will help small firms more than large ones. Small firms don't have access to the capital or the ability to co-operate with large organisations."

Smithers said there was a "huge cost" involved in setting up the portal, which firms would pay for either on a subscription basis or per transaction.

However, he said there was a "real cash saving" in ending the current paper-based processes.

"We are exploring ways of saving firms real money to avoid this having a financial impact," Smithers said. "It is not designed to make transactions more expensive - it's a different way of working."

Smithers said the portal offered potentially big gains in the fight against fraud and the society had held meetings with the CML and lenders.

He added that the portal had to cover licensed conveyancers, and could not be limited to CQS firms. However, he said CQS firms might benefit from a discount.

Eddie Goldsmith, chairman of the Conveyancing Association, said the portal was a "game changer" and the Law Society should be "applauded to the rooftops" for coming up with the initiative.

"Conveyancing has been done in the same pedantic, tortuous way for far too long. This puts us in fairly and squarely in the 21st Century."

Goldsmith said clients often complained about lack of communication and the portal opened the way for providing information on progress not only in a single conveyancing transaction, but other transactions in the chain.

"A big issue for the Conveyancing Association is integration with lawyers' case management systems. We can't have staff coming out of this system, only to have to go into another to input information."

Goldsmith added that the portal could offer "huge benefits" to lenders, but online mortgage offers were probably for the "medium to long-term".