Proving Conveyancing Quality to PI Insurers

In the lead-up to PI insurance renewals, Lexsure are offering firms the ability to commission a lender compliance audit which can be used to evidence to professional indemnity insurers the quality of their conveyancing. The independent assessment reviews files based on the UKF Handbook Requirements as of the date of the mortgage offer on file.

Until now, Lexsure restricted the availability of their audit facility to lenders and insurers but are now making the facility available directly to firms.

Everyone knows that conveyancing is the highest-risk area of legal practice with lenders dominating the instigation of claims. Firms that are confident of their quality and compliance with lender requirements should be able to evidence to their PI insurers that they are managing risk properly.

In carrying out an audit, the assessor (non-practicing solicitors with over 20 years conveyancing experience) utilise Lexsure’s proprietary technologies which incorporate the relevant UKF Part 2 requirements based on the date of the COT.  

With PII renewal season in full swing SRO’s, COLPs and Heads of Department would be well advised to take advantage of an external audit so that they can prove the quality of their lender compliance to assist in obtaining insurance. Firms should not shy away from ‘lifting up the carpet’. If there are areas for improvement then it is well worth finding out and dealing with it sooner rather than later.

Lexsure offer conveyancers a version of the ‘Pepsi Challenge’

The Pepsi Challenge signaled a major shift in the cola landscape. In 1975, Coke dominated the cola market having held the number 1 position for decades. 

Pepsi was the underdog looking to prove something. They were hungry and willing to mix it up. Pepsi came up with a bold revolutionary strategy to do just that.

That idea was the Pepsi Challenge. Pepsi went inside malls around the USA and invited people to do a blind taste test between Coke and Pepsi. The challenge was designed to be a direct response to critics who allege that Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola are identical drinks, with no meaningful differences. The results were remarkable; people picked Pepsi over Coke by a significant margin.

Leading law tech company Lexsure are offering up to 50 firms to conduct, free of charge, their own version of the Pepsi challenge. Will Lexsure’s ENQUIRYgenerator technology outperform a firm’s conventional method of raising additional enquiries?

There are the two options as to how the challenge should operate: 

Single-Lawyer: Without any advance warning, the COLP or head of department should select a file where a conveyancer has recently reviewed a full set of documents and raised additional enquiries in the normal fashion. Then ask that fee earner to run through the same set of papers using Lexsure’s ENQUIRYgenerator. Compare and contrast. 

Two-Lawyer: Take a live purchase file where all the paperwork is in ready to be reviewed with the intention of raising enquiries. Make a copy of the file. Identify two conveyancers within the firm of equal experience and competence. One fee earner will review the file as per normal and the second will use ENQUIRYgenerator. So that this is a true test, neither lawyer should know that the file is being reviewed by another. Once again compare and contrast side-by-side. 

David Myers of Lexsure recently said at a webinar. “Law firms are understandably skeptical when it comes to adopting new risk management technologies. Frankly, it would be hubris to expect lawyers to accept, at face value, the assertion that technology can offer significant additional protection. It’s for us to prove that new processes are worth the financial cost and cultural change. Firms should have the opportunity to assess the output of new technologies on its intrinsic merits based on results.” 

ENQUIRYgenerator enables conveyancers to efficiently build case specific, targeted conveyancing enquiries based on a file review. The intelligence of the system grows daily due to the collaborative nature of the software whereby lawyers add novel enquiries into the database to be utilised in future cases with similar characteristics. These new questions can be inspired by recent case law or legislation (Dreamvar being a good example).Lender-specific and location-specific questions can also be added and indexed. 

Law firms wanting to take up the challenge by way of a free trial should contact support@lexsure.com 

No Summer Slowdown When it Comes to Lender Handbook Changes

The three month period between June and September 2018 witnessed significant activity when it came to lenders changing their Handbook instructions. Conveyancers may have taken a well earned break during the summer but lenders did not rest when it came to altering their requirements for panel firms.

Here are some of the facts and figures:

Lender	Sections Changed	Separate Change Events
Barclays Bank UK PLC	3	2
Halifax	8	4
HSBC Bank plc	11	5
Nationwide Building Society	9	6
Santander UK plc	12	5
Skipton Building Society	4	3
Virgin Money plc	1	1

A full list can be found here:

The total number of sections varied in the summer period was 253 with 47 lenders making changes.

Email notifications via the LENDERmonitor Notification Service was sent to over 650 lawyers.

The highest open rates were by top-200 law firms who, in this regard, display a healthy appetite towards lender compliance.

60% of LM04 pre-COT date range searches in the said period revealed lender changes. The most searched lender was Nationwide Building Society.

Some of the more significant changes related to crucial issues such as :

• Ground rent escalation clauses 
• Minimum unexpired lease terms 
• Gifted deposits 
• Redemption statements 
• Reporting incentives 
• Flying Freeholds 

If you are yet to sign up to the Notification Service you should give it serious consideration. Click here to find out more.

As we approach the Autumn period don't ‘fall’ down when it comes to following your lender client’s requirements. It’s easy to get tripped up and miss a change. Surely you don't want to cause serious and irreparable damage to your firm in failing to follow instructions?