You would have to be tone deaf not to hear the growing level of frustration being voiced by advisers around the entire purchase and remortgage process right now.
I fully appreciate that, where we currently are – with purchase cases, for example, taking on average over five months to complete – is far from ideal and is resulting in clients missing out on competitively-priced mortgage products secured months ago because of the significant time it is taking to get transactions across the finishing line.
I saw a recent piece on this very subject matter, and to hear advisers bemoan the level of conveyancing service they were receiving in such vociferous terms, was difficult to read, especially given our central role as a distributor in this space.
While not wishing to make excuses for the some of the justified criticism being levelled at the conveyancing sector right now, it is also important to understand the current situation, and indeed how it is not helped by the conveyancing process in general.
It’s quite obvious to me that were we to design a way of conveyancing today, no-one in their right mind would suggest the way we currently convey. However, we are where we are, and while the industry has often been notoriously slow to embrace technological change, I can think of no conveyancing stakeholder I have had contact with, who doesn’t understand the flaws of the current system and the benefits a far more integrated, technology-driven process would offer everyone.
The good news here is that the direction of travel is undoubtedly facing forwards, and there is a groundswell of support for (amongst other things), better upfront information, digital ID verification, use of AI to populate documentation, e-signatures, and an end-to-end process which does not rely on paper being moved around, and queries taking weeks to answer.
There is a great deal of impetus behind such changes. I’m been incredibly impressed by the work of the Conveyancing Association in pushing for these types of changes, recognising the benefits they will bring in terms of completing transactions more quickly, but also in terms of the certainty and security they can bring, which will undoubtedly help all of us in terms of bringing down the huge number of aborted transactions which happen every single year.
We also have Government support, a strong industry-wide movement in terms of the Home Buying & Selling Group, plus Land Registry and other bodies, who all appear to (at last) be singing from the same hymn sheet and working together in order to deliver a technology-focused solution that will fundamentally improve the process. And, I freely admit, we need that sooner rather than later.
We currently do have some mitigating factors for process delays. Like many areas of the property market, conveyancing firms – particularly the large-scale operators who are responsible for the vast majority of cases – are struggling to bring on board the resource required to deal with the high volume of cases.
There was an anticipation that 2022 would see less purchase business, but that hasn’t been the case, and of course we have a very strong volume of remortgage activity right now driven by rate and product pricing changes.
Again, this is no excuse, but the two areas have combined and this is resulting in the delays advisers have unfortunately been dealing with. Bringing on the resource required is both difficult, and takes time, and I’m afraid to say that – for a large number of firms – this situation may get slightly worse before it gets better.
However, it will get better and with the addition of the changes mentioned above, I do see a future where the types of issues and delays we are currently seeing, become – if not a thing of the past – then certainly exceptions to the norm. Again, I appreciate that this might be very easy to say right now, and it doesn’t help those going through such painful experiences with conveyancing, but it will get better.
In the meantime, I would simply urge advisers to use everything at their disposal in terms of helping clients and moving along the process. We know that, for many practitioners, they are being all things to all customers at the moment; a focal point for the case, having to chase in order to communicate with the clients, and the one source of truth for those who have trusted them with their mortgage business.
I suspect that will not change, but if you are using a distributor like ourselves, then you can certainly draw upon us to help you in that area. We have dedicated teams working on our cases at our conveyancing firms, which means we’re able to communicate quickly and efficiently with the firm, and hopefully use our influence to find out the information you need and potentially to chivvy things along.
It can only help to have this sort of resource to draw upon, and we are here to help support you and your clients in order to, as quickly and efficiently as possible, get to the desired outcome in the desired timescale.
Mark Snape is chief executive officer of Broker Conveyancing
