The modernisation of conveyancing in England in recent years as a result of inter alia the Land Registration Act of 2002, the recent house price explosion and the simplification of the property conveyancing process has resulted in volume conveyancing taking hold in recent years. Specialist conveyancing firms, operating nationwide and breaking local monopolies has seen the proliferation of "conveyancing paralegals" - non lawyers employed by a firm of solicitors to do the work a solicitor would have done on a much lower salary. Inevitably conveyancing advice has suffered and professional negligence claims have increased. However defects and other issues giving rise to such claims have been counterbalanced by firms taking increased legal indemnity cover and enjoying increased fee income as a result of the sheer volume of transfers completed.
Progress has slowed with the recent property market collapse which has caused a lot of conveyancing specialist firms to go broke or to scale back on their operations, however the momentum is gathering again, especially as the Legal Services Act of 2007 introduced the possibility of non-lawyers setting up conveyancing firms. As a result it is possible that one day supermarkets will offer cheap conveyancing services, protecting themselves with title indemnity insurance if problems arise. High speed transactions and electronic signatures might even see the "chain matrix" website concept being revived.
In short the future might reveal a conveyancing world with supermarkets introducing "one stop shops" offering estate agency, conveyancing, mortgage and insurance services in a single package.
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