Council for Licensed Conveyancers - regulating property and probate lawyers

Over a half of conveyancers (55%) are confident in the current stability of the property market, but report little sign of the process speeding up. The results form part of our new quarterly Confidence Tracker to gauge the views of the profession on the current state of home buying and selling market. A third of conveyancers were neutral in their response regarding current market stability and just 12% reported a lack of confidence. Most transactions (84%) are taking either three or four months to complete from acceptance of an offer to completion. Just 17% of respondents report seeing improvements in the conveyancing process, indicating that industry wide efforts to reap the benefits of new processes and IT need to be redoubled. Conveyancers report little convergence amongst buyers and sellers in their confidence levels, with less than a third of buyers (29%) and sellers (28%) showing any positivity about current property market conditions.

The CLC has been made aware of attempts by some conveyancers representing buyers to amend agreed conditions of sale so that, in the event that a transaction does not complete by 31st March, either: the purchase will not proceed at all; or the agreed sale price will be reduced to mitigate the higher SDLT payment that will be due from 1st April. The CLC urges conveyancers to exercise extreme caution before agreeing changes to the standard conditions of sale. If parties are content to amend those, conveyancers must have a permanent record of consent to the amendments that clearly demonstrates that the clients have understood the impact of those changes in the relevant scenarios. Such attempted amendments may indicate that the buyer has not been properly advised of the potential impact on them of the 1 April increase to the SDLT threshold. We remind conveyancers of the need to ensure that buyers understand that their transaction cannot be guaranteed to complete ahead of such tax changes. Our Advisory Note on the risks arising from SDLT holidays sets out the issues for conveyancers. https://zurl.co/klDXT

Our inaugural Quarterly Confidence Tracker launched this week with property market confidence high amongst conveyancers.

Get your applications to HM Land Registry right. Following the success of training for CLC lawyers by HM Land Registry in January, we have two more sessions coming. They are bite-sized one-hour sessions online. They will be most useful for anyone who did not take part before. You will find it most useful to attend both sessions, but you will need to register for each one separately, using the links below. Tuesday 8th April 10 – 11 a.m https://zurl.co/y0mvK Wednesday 9th April 10-11 a.m https://zurl.co/hev59

We have updated the CLC AML non-compliance case studies in the AML Toolkit to ensure practices have the opportunity to learn from non-compliance we have seen in the sector in our inspection, monitoring and enforcement activities. You can access it here: https://zurl.co/k4LAW

Changes to the AML Toolkit We have updated the CLC AML non-compliance case studies in the AML Toolkit to ensure practices have the opportunity to reflect on and learn from non-compliance we have seen in the sector in the course of our inspection, monitoring and enforcement activities. We strongly encourage practices use these case studies as an opportunity to assess their own compliance and where necessary, make changes to ensure they are compliant. Recognising that having two separate links in the AML toolkit to red flags was not helpful, we have now consolidated them into a single document. The document has also been updated to reflect emerging issues that practices should be alert to. You can access it here: https://zurl.co/k4LAW

LSB consults on ethical conduct of lawyers At its annual Reshaping Legal Services conference last WEEK, the Legal Services Board launched its latest consultation titled Upholding Professional Ethical Duties. The consultation sets out the LSB’s proposed statement of policy aimed at strengthening the professional ethical duties of lawyers. Professional ethics underpins legal services and supports the constitutional principle of the Rule of Law. Ethical standards of legal professionals lies at the heart of public trust and confidence in the profession, yet over the last few years the questionable conduct of some within the profession has broken that trust and regrettably, eroded public confidence in the sector. In the foreword to the consultation, LSB Chief Executive, Craig Westwood says ‘I invite all stakeholders in the legal sector – including civic society groups, legal services users, practitioners, regulators, professional bodies and others – to engage with these proposals. Your insights and experiences will be invaluable in shaping a framework that not only strengthens professional ethical standards but also ensures the legal profession is able to serve the public interest and maintain public confidence.’. The consultation deadline is 29 May 2025. Have your say here 📢 https://zurl.co/IhETJ

As you will be aware, the CLC’s Technology and Innovation Working Group recently carried out a survey aimed at understanding the challenges that practices face when procuring new systems and platforms, and what the sector would find most useful in the CLC’s future Technology Guidance. Thank you to everyone who took part in the survey. We are now carrying out analysis of the feedback. With the input from the CLC’s Technology and Innovation Working Group and further input from technology experts, we will be preparing draft guidance with the aim of launching it later this summer. We will continue to keep you updated on progress over the coming months.

Changes to the Grey List The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) met recently and arising from this meeting, there have been some changes to the countries on the “grey list” (countries subject to increased monitoring): • Laos and Nepal were added to the list of countries under increased monitoring; • Philippines has been removed from the list of countries under increased monitoring; • Russia’s continued suspension remains in force. The UK list of high risk countries (HRTC) now mirrors the FATF lists. Practices need to ensure that Enhanced Due Diligence (EDD) is applied when a client is “established” in a HRTC. For an individual this means being resident in that country (not just having been born there), and for a company or legal person it means being incorporated in or having its principal place of business in that country. These lists also relate only to AML and not to sanctions (they are two separate and distinct regimes). https://zurl.co/oZm31

Help improve mental health in the legal sector - last chance! It has long been recognised that the legal sector is highly pressured and can be an incredibly stressful working environment. These pressures can be felt even more acutely in the conveyancing and probate space for many reasons, not least of which is that often, as the only person a client can talk to, you often end up having to make apologies for things that are completely outside of your control and which you cannot influence at all. With the aim of understanding the realities of working life in the law and prompting meaningful change, in 2021 LawCare, the mental health charity for the legal sector, carried out its first survey looking at mental health and wellbeing. Whilst there has been progress, four years on the charity wishes to reassess and understand where the sector is today. Understanding more about the current realities of a lawyer’s working life will help ensure that the sector focuses on making change in relation to things that matter most to you. Life in the Law 2025 is your opportunity to share your experiences and help ensure that the changes needed to better support mental health and wellbeing are based on your lived experience. By taking part, you will be contributing to improving working practices in the law for you, your colleagues and future generations of conveyancers and probate professionals. These links will take you to the surveys: Complete the Life in the Law 2025 survey for individuals https://zurl.co/FXxLB Complete the Life in the Law 2025 survey for organisations https://zurl.co/Z9eMz