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Conveyancing Month!

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

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Text Box: As most practitioners will know, Land registry’s e-conveyancing roll out will be subject to vigorous testing before being made mandatory by or about 2010. The pilot, which is now scheduled to be under way by the Autumn, will take place in Portsmouth, Fareham and Bristol, and all firms in those areas are welcome to participate. According to Land Registry spokesperson Marion Shelley “The E-conveyancing task force were keen to select areas for testing the chain matrix prototype where the likelihood of completing chains was high. A number of criteria were used to identify those areas including the percentage of home-ownership, volumes of transactions, mobility of buyers and sellers and our relationship with the local conveyancing community. The areas selected were Portsmouth, Fareham and Bristol”. The good news for practitioners who work close to, but outside of, those areas is that they also have a good chance of being included in the pilot. According to Ms Shelley “Firms located a significant distance from those areas will not be able to participate in the testing, but those firms located outside the boundaries of these areas, but in the near vicinity may be given the opportunity to participate, especially if this helps to complete a chain”. And it’s not just the lawyers who Land Registry want to hear from, but other stakeholders as well, such as estate agents. “All residential conveyancing firms and estate agents within the prototype areas will be approached to join, with our recruitment campaign starting in July” said Ms Shelley. “Information and approaches will be by way of a mix of press releases, letters, seminars and personal approaches from our Chain Matrix new business team based in Land Registry Portsmouth office”. Land Registry have confirmed to Conveyancing Month! that agents and clients will have “view only” rights to the Matrix, which will be allocated by conveyancers, who alone will have full access to the system, and the right to vary or add data. Ultimately, and when the system goes live, all practitioners wishing to use the service will need to enter into a Network Access Agreement with Land Registry, And there will, of course, have to be selection criteria. So what will it be? Smaller firms will be relieved to hear that it wont turn into a numbers game. “There will be no requirement as to minimum numbers of transactions” confirmed Ms Shelley although they will need to have compatible electronic and computer equipment to connect to the system, acceptable levels of security within the working environment, and they will need to comply with Land Registry security requirements (for instance, as to the use of security codes, passwords, digital signatures and so forth). “We will also need to be satisfied that the conveyancer has adequate insurance cover” she said “and can meet their financial obligations under the agreement”. Training and supervision will also be an issue, and there will be a requirement in the Agreement for firms to ensure that any staff who use the network have received sufficient training and that they use the service only at the level of access appropriate to their qualifications. One further area of concern for practitioners is DIY conveyancers, and here, Land Registry have been a good deal more guarded. Basically, the LRA 2002 Schedule 5 (7(1)) provides:- “If there is a land registry network, the registrar has a duty to provide such assistance as he thinks appropriate for the purpose of enabling persons engaged in qualifying transactions who wish to do their own conveyancing to do so by means of the network.” Potentially, this gives rise to a serious commercial conflict between the conveyancing industry on the one hand, and Land Registry on the other. After all, if DIY conveyancers are to be given working access to the Matrix, they will presumably need supervision and assistance by proxy. Who will provide it? Land Registry perhaps? And if so, how much will they charge? The only alternative - to provide DIY’ers with a user interface that is so simple and efficient, that they wont need any supervision or assistance - is hardly more attractive, as it would increasingly encourage buyers and sellers to dispense with lawyers’ services entirely. So what is Land Registry’s view? “E-conveyancing services are being introduced in a number of tranches over the coming years” said Ms Shelley. “Members of the public will have access to the network to conduct qualifying transactions in due course when the DIY service is introduced, in the meantime they will continue to have access to registration services as at present. No work has yet been done on what the DIY service will include or on what charges will be appropriate”. In fairness to Land Registry, they have always made it clear that they are concerned with facilitating e-conveyancing, not actually undertaking it. Nevertheless, as time goes on, practitioners will need a good deal more information on this point from Land Reistry, and it is to be hoped that they will not be too slow in providing it!

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