The Conveyancing Portal - Reducing Your Risk Footprint

As businesses go, conveyancing is perceived as high risk, topping the list of claims in the professional indemnity insurance and the compensation fund. The upshot is that firms engaged in conveyancing have a higher chance of being rated as a high-risk for SRA supervision and monitoring.

 

For that reason, alone, conveyancing firms need to be able to provide evidence and an audit trail of compliance.  And with outcome-focused regulation, robust processes and systems need to be in place to manage risk and deter fraud.    

So, it's against this backdrop that the Law Society are designing a conveyancing portal to reduce the strain and hassle of reducing the size of a firm's risk footprint. The portal, it is claimed, will over time provide verifiable evidence and assurance to lenders and PII insurers that a firm follows best practice and manages risk and performance effectively. 

And while precise details are yet to be disclosed, the Law Society maintain that compliance risk management will be embedded and integrated across the portal to reflect the requirements of industry regulators and key stakeholders.  

Peter Rodd, Chair of the Property Section of the Law Society said recently "The portal is a significant step on the path to achieving the core objectives of the CQS, to create a trusty community of conveyancers, modernize conveyancing, and to deter fraud."

All very commendable but it begs the question: What has CQS done to-date as far as these core objectives are concerned?

From here, it looks like the above statement is as much an admission of CQS underachievement as it is an expression of intention. 

With lenders gravitating towards the Lender Exchange, rather than waiting for the conveyancing portal to materialize, the Law Society is in danger of appearing like the boy who cried "wolf".