Conveyancing Month!

In anticipation of the Clementi reforms, and the governments proposals for reorganising delivery of legal services across the UK, the Regulation Board of the Law Society has announced the appointment of Antony Townsend as Chief Executive Regulation.

Gross mortgage lending totalled £23 billion in January - the highest January lending figure on record, according to data released this week from the Council of Mortgage Lenders. This figure is down by 14% on December's £26.9 billion, but is nearly a third higher than the £17.4 billion lent in January 2005.

Eight out of ten conveyancing firms are not clear about how the HIPs (Home Information Packs) process and legislation are going to work, a new survey has discovered. The survey, carried out by ConveyanceLink also revealed a similar proportion were still uncertain on what the key components of a HIP were going to be, despite the likelihood that a large number of high street law firms plan to offer a HIPs service in-house.

The National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) is to launch on-line reporting  for suspicious activity reports (SARs) in April. The system – which is intendeed to become compulsory at a later date - will be introduced to coincide with the launch of the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA).

 The UK’s first monthly on-line journal dedicated to conveyancers!

News...

TM Property Service is now owned equally by Rightmove and three leading estate agents: Countrywide, Connells and Halifax.

The Office for Legal Complaints must make a real effort to reach out to consumers who do not have the skills and confidence to complain when they get bad service from lawyers, says the chair of the new, independent Consumer Complaints Board (CCB), in its response to the White Paper, “The Future of Legal Services”.

News that council tax bills are to increase by more than twice the level of inflation this year could be the final straw for rapidly disappearing first time buyers, according to the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA), who said the tax hikes were a ‘final insult’ to first-timers.

According to the Law Society, and following on from a a survey conducted by NOP, the vast majority of practising solicitors in England and Wales supports the continued existence of a national body to represent the profession, Law Society research has revealed.

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