In a recent hearing before the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee Inquiry, Beth Rudolf, the Director of Delivery at the Conveyancing Association (CA), voiced concerns over the expanding responsibilities placed on conveyancers. Rudolf highlighted the phenomenon of ‘scope creep,’ wherein the sector finds itself burdened with additional tasks, straining firms and staff and impeding timely completion of housing sales.
During the inquiry, Rudolf pointed out that the workload for conveyancers has significantly increased in recent years, resulting in transaction times extending to an average of 22 weeks or more. She cited various additional tasks that conveyancers must now manage, including handling onerous leaseholds, estate rent charges, managed freeholds, and compliance with the Building Safety Act.
Rudolf engaged with questions from cross-party MPs, advocating for upfront provision of more information to buyers. She argued that this transparency would prevent transaction withdrawals later in the process. Rudolf proposed mandatory collection and review of certain information upfront to expedite transactions, especially in lengthy housing chains. Furthermore, she emphasized the potential of technology, such as digital ID and digital logbooks for each property, to streamline conveyancing processes.
In her remarks, Rudolf underscored the challenges posed by scope creep and emphasized the urgent need for digital solutions. She stressed that the dematerialization of deed packs has exacerbated the situation, making it difficult to access crucial information efficiently. Rudolf highlighted the necessity of digital packs and logbooks to consolidate information and streamline conveyancing procedures, lamenting the absence of a digital alternative to facilitate improvements in the sector.
Beth Rudolf commented, “Scope creep has grown hugely in recent years and it presents conveyancers with a huge amount of work to go through. This has been made even more difficult by the dematerialisation of deed packs, and it needs solutions such as digital packs and digital logbooks to be able to bring all that information back together to cut down on the times that conveyancers have to spend trying to find this. In years gone by, that information was kept together and could be readily used by conveyancers in future transactions. Without the digital version of this, we can’t deliver the improvements we need.”