The Conveyancing Time Bomb

By Brian Rogers, Regulatory Director, The Access Group (Legal Division)

How the exodus of experienced conveyancers, systemic quality failures, and compliance theatre are creating delayed liabilities that will haunt the legal profession for years to come

The 15% solution that isn’t

When Joe Pepper, UK CEO of PEXA, told MPs that 15% of conveyancers have left the market in just two years, with another 30% planning to follow within five years, he identified a crisis that extends far beyond transaction times. What he perhaps didn’t fully articulate is what happens to the quality of work being rushed through by an overstretched, under-resourced profession operating in a race-to-the-bottom market—and when those quality failures will come home to roost.

Professional indemnity insurers understand something that regulators seem to miss: poor quality conveyancing doesn’t always manifest immediately. The boundary wall erected on the wrong plot, the shared ownership lease provisions that will cause “huge headaches” years later during staircasing, the Land Registry requisitions that emerge 18 months post-completion—these are time-delayed liabilities that can take years to materialise into claims.

And insurers are watching the conveyancing market with growing nervousness.

The CQS Paradox: quality marks that don’t mark quality

Discussions in various forums reveals practitioners refusing shared ownership work because they know they’ll be “dealing with a low grade conveyancer from a large practice which has tendered low to get the work.” These large practices almost invariably hold the Law Society’s Conveyancing Quality Scheme (CQS) accreditation—supposedly a mark of excellence in residential conveyancing.

In my analysis of 100+ law firms fined nearly £3 million for anti-money laundering breaches between 2019-2024, 76% held the CQS quality accreditation during the average six years of non-compliance. If firms holding CQS cannot maintain basic AML compliance—a fundamental regulatory obligation with clear rules and regular supervision—what confidence can we have in the quality of their day-to-day conveyancing work?

The economics of decline

The conveyancing market has reached a point of economic unsustainability that inevitably degrades quality:

Apparently mortgage lenders are now proposing to charge conveyancers to access their handbooks—while not paying them for lender work—epitomises the cost-squeeze driving experienced practitioners out of the market. Meanwhile, regulatory costs continue to rise, compliance obligations multiply, and fee competition intensifies.

This is not a sustainable model. More critically, it’s not a model that produces reliable, high-quality legal work.

The insurance implications

Professional indemnity insurers price risk based on claims experience, and conveyancing claims can have very long tails.

When 15% of experienced conveyancers have already left the market, with 30% more planning to follow, insurers must consider: Who did the conveyancing on millions of transactions over the past five years, and what time-bombs are ticking away in their files?

That’s not a conveyancing problem. That’s a liability incubating.

The regulatory vacuum

National Trading Standards has “no resources” to enforce material information requirements. The SRA regulates conveyancing firms but focuses on process compliance rather than transaction quality. Quality marks are awarded based on systems and procedures, not outcomes. Nobody is systematically monitoring whether the work being done today will generate claims tomorrow.

This is regulatory failure in its purest form: rules without enforcement, compliance without quality, and market dysfunction masked by quality accreditation badges that seem to mean little in practice.

The parallels with AML regulation are striking. Despite mandatory obligations, clear rules, and regular supervision, 78% of solicitors cannot demonstrate AML compliance when tested. If the regulatory framework cannot ensure compliance with prescriptive, well-defined obligations like AML, how can it possibly ensure the quality of complex, judgement-intensive conveyancing work?

The developer panel problem

Online forum contributors describe being “threatened with the sale being cancelled if we are not ready to complete on the target completion date even though our inability to complete is as a result of totally unsatisfactory replies to legitimate concerns.” This reveals a fundamental conflict between transaction velocity and professional standards.

When developers appoint conveyancing firms based on low tenders and rapid turnaround, they’re not buying quality legal services—they’re buying transaction processing.

The claims wave coming

Professional indemnity insurers operate on a “claims made” basis—they pay claims reported during the policy period, regardless of when the negligence occurred. This means firms face liability for work done years ago, potentially by conveyancers who have since left the profession.

Consider the perfect storm brewing:

  1. 15% of conveyancers gone, with the most experienced practitioners disproportionately likely to have left
  2. High-volume work rushed through by overstretched teams during a pandemic and its aftermath
  3. Complex new issues (cladding, building safety, shared ownership structures, leasehold reform)
  4. Economic pressure forcing corners to be cut
  5. Quality accreditation that provides little actual quality assurance

The claims from work done in 2020-2025 will manifest between 2025-2035. Insurers know this. They’re watching conveyancer departure rates, monitoring quality failures, and pricing accordingly. Premium increases are inevitable, further squeezing the economics of conveyancing practice.

The “what else aren’t they doing?” question

When historically 76% of AML-fined firms held quality accreditations at the time of their failures (100% with the most recent batch of fined firms), it raises a profound question about what other corners are being cut. AML compliance is relatively straightforward:

These are clear, prescriptive obligations with established procedures and regular supervision. Yet 78% of solicitors cannot demonstrate compliance when tested by their regulator.

Conveyancing involves hundreds of judgement calls:

If firms cannot maintain compliance with straightforward AML rules, what confidence can we have in their handling of complex conveyancing judgements where there’s no supervisor checking their work and no independent verification of quality?

The insurance industry implicitly asks this question every time they price conveyancing risk. The answer they’re reaching—reflected in rising premiums and more restrictive terms—suggests they don’t like what they’re seeing.

The regulatory response that isn’t

The SRA’s response to conveyancing market dysfunction has been to:

Meanwhile:

This is not regulation—it’s regulatory theatre that creates the illusion of oversight while the market fails in real time.

The Parliamentary dimension

Joe Pepper’s evidence to the housing, communities and local government committee reveals something crucial: legal services market failure is impeding government housing policy. You can build all the houses you want, but if the conveyancing market cannot process transactions efficiently and reliably, housing supply is irrelevant.

More significantly, if the quality of conveyancing work is degrading due to market dysfunction, those new houses come with time-delayed liabilities that will burden consumers, lenders, insurers, and the legal profession for years to come.

Parliament needs to understand that this isn’t just about transaction speed—it’s about quality, reliability, and the sustainability of legal services delivery. The current regulatory framework actively contributes to market failure by:

The way forward

Fixing the conveyancing crisis requires confronting uncomfortable truths:

1. Quality marks are broken – CQS doesn’t prevent AML failures, don’t ensure transaction quality, and don’t protect consumers. They need fundamental reform.

2. The business model is unsustainable – you cannot deliver quality professional work through low-tender developer panels operating on impossible timescales. The economics must support careful, thorough legal practice.

3. Enforcement is non-existent – National Trading Standards has no resources, the SRA focuses on process not outcomes, and nobody is systematically monitoring transaction quality or investigating systemic failures.

4. Experience is fleeing the market – when 30% of remaining conveyancers plan to leave within five years, the profession faces a knowledge and quality crisis that no amount of technology can fix.

5. Insurance will force change – if regulators won’t act, insurers will—through premium increases, restricted cover, and firm exits from the market. That’s the expensive, disruptive way to drive change.

The time bomb is ticking

Somewhere in England today, a conveyancer under pressure to complete quickly is missing a planning condition. A shared ownership lease is being drafted with provisions that will cause problems during staircasing. A boundary is being incorrectly marked. A management company structure is being inadequately established.

These aren’t theoretical problems—they’re liabilities incubating in files across the country, waiting to manifest as claims against firms that may no longer have the conveyancers who did the work or the insurance cover adequate to the scale of future claims.

Professional indemnity insurers can see the wave coming. Experienced practitioners can see it too—that’s why 15% have already left and 30% are planning their exits. Forum discussions reveal practitioners refusing certain work types because they know the quality risks are unmanageable.

The question is whether regulators and policymakers will act before the claims wave hits, or whether we’ll face another SSB Group, another Axiom Ince, another scandal where hindsight reveals systemic failures that were entirely predictable.

The conveyancing market is sending distress signals. The insurance market is pricing disaster. The regulatory response is more compliance theatre.

How many more warnings do we need?

The Technology Safety Net

While legal software cannot fix the fundamental economic and regulatory failures driving the conveyancing crisis, it can provide critical risk mitigation as experienced practitioners flee an unsustainable market.

Embedded compliance and quality controls build mandatory checkpoints into workflows, ensuring critical steps cannot be bypassed when practitioners are under pressure. Automated prompts for searches, enquiries, and disclosures create a safety net when human oversight is stretched thin.

Comprehensive audit trails become the firm’s institutional memory when claims emerge years later—potentially after the handling conveyancer has left the profession. Detailed activity logging demonstrates what checks were performed, when decisions were made, and what advice was given.

Risk-based supervision tools enable COLPs to provide targeted oversight where resources are limited. Real-time dashboards reveal where bottlenecks occur, where quality issues emerge, and where intervention is needed before problems escalate into claims.

Integrated AML compliance addresses a fundamental weakness: when 78% of solicitors fail basic compliance testing, embedded CDD processes, automated identity verification, and source of funds tracking ensure basic obligations cannot be overlooked in the rush to complete.

Management information for early intervention provides data-driven visibility of matter status, compliance performance, and quality indicators—enabling firms to identify problems before they become claims.

Technology is not a silver bullet. It cannot replace experienced conveyancers or compensate for inadequate fees. But in a market where 15% of practitioners have already left and 30% more are planning their exits, where quality accreditation has proven meaningless, and where insurers are pricing disaster, properly implemented legal software provides essential scaffolding to support stretched practitioners and protect firms from the liability wave coming.

The conveyancing market is sending distress signals. The insurance market is pricing disaster. The regulatory response is compliance theatre. Firms that recognise these realities and implement robust technological controls will be better positioned to weather the storm—and to demonstrate their quality when others are failing.

The question isn’t whether to embrace technology in conveyancing—it’s whether firms will implement it before the claims manifest, or after.

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