Conveyancing negligence claims – not out of the woods yet
Conveyancing negligence claims against solicitors increased dramatically during the post-2008 recession after property prices fell.
Now that property prices have recovered in most of England and Wales, it would be natural to assume that the number of claims for negligent conveyancing should fall away to pre-recession levels.
Although that is what happened after previous recessions, this time round it may not, as solicitors struggle to cope with a surge in property transactions.
During the recession, most solicitors’ practices experienced a slump in revenue from conveyancing work. There were 3 main reasons for this:
- First and foremost, the number of property transactions decreased dramatically.
- Secondly, solicitors lost work to conveyancing ‘factories’ that started emerging after the Legal Services Act 2007 allowed non-lawyer organisations to provide legal services for the first time. These ‘factories’, manned largely by unqualified (and therefore comparatively cheaper) staff, offered to do conveyancing work at rates that were just not economic for solicitors.
- Thirdly, solicitors were forced to cut their fees in order to attract what work there was.
As a result, many conveyancers found themselves out of work as law firms across the country made redundancies.
The lull in property sales continued for several years and property lawyers, understandably, retrained in other areas of law or left the profession.
When the property market picked up again, conveyancing practices became busy again and sought to recruit more staff to cope with demand. The problem they faced is that there is a shortage of experienced conveyancers.
If solicitors take on conveyancing work that they don’t have the resources to deal with properly, experience shows that mistakes will be made, clients will lose out and negligence claims will inevitably follow.
If you feel you have been let down by a lawyer in relation to a property matter and would like to speak to a solicitor who specialises in conveyancing negligence claims, contact us now by:
- calling us on 0330 050 5254
- emailing us at enquiries@cap-law.co.uk
We offer a full range of funding options, including conditional fee agreements (also known as ‘no win, no fee’ and ’no win, low fee’), fixed fees, legal expenses insurance, damages based agreements, as well as the standard hourly rate retainer.