Conveyancers are ‘sloppy’ on post-completion work - warning

Conveyancers are failing to do post-completion work properly and promptly, an industry regulator has warned.

The Council for Licensed Conveyancers (CLC) has outlined its growing concern that professionals in the sector are falling into a trap of failing to finish a transaction after it has been completed and they have taken their fee.

The CLC says in its 2024 Risk Agenda that these failures are sometimes only identified years later, causing significant risk, stress and delays to consumers and other interested parties.

While there may be delays at HM Land Registry, these are made worse by slow or sloppy title change applications from conveyancers, the CLC said.

The Risk Agenda said: “The data that the CLC receives from HM Land Registry on requisition rates gives cause for concern that some practices are not taking their responsibility seriously or are using HM Land Registry to check their work rather than making an effort to ensure that it is accurate to begin with. 

“Some seem to treat post-completion matters as an afterthought as it is undertaken after they collect their fee. The reality is that clients have been charged for this work and there is an obligation to perform it promptly and with diligence. Taking the fee and not completing the work is a breach of the Accounts Code and demonstrates a lack of integrity.”

Sheila Kumar, CLC chief executive, said: “The good news for consumers is that licensed conveyancers are dedicated professionals who our monitoring shows provide excellent services under often stressful circumstances. But trip wires abound in the modern legal landscape and the Risk Agenda is part of our work to ensure the lawyers the CLC regulates not fall over them.”