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Questions - Landmark Information Group
Landmark Information Group -
Questions for Northamptonshire Law Society Bulletin Autumn 2020 – COVID Edition
From Tony Rollason, Regional Manager of Landmark Information
1. Please provide a brief description of you, your organisation, number of employees and areas of work.
Landmark Information Group is the UK’s leading provider of information to the property market. Within the group, the Landmark Legal business division provides a comprehensive suite of environmental and planning due diligence search reports to property lawyers and legal conveyancers. Used for both residential and commercial property transactions, this includes its flagship RiskView Residential all-in-one report. 2. When did you first become aware of Coronavirus and what were your initial thoughts?
I was aware of the virus around February time when daily new reports began closely monitoring what was happening in other countries. It soon became clear that it was going to impact all of us in some way. As March unravelled, it was clear decisive action was needed and this would have a big impact on both our personal and business lives.
3. What steps did you/your firm initially take and what problems did you encounter?
As a business, we already have a strong Business Continuity Plan in place, which is tested at regular intervals. The BCP is something we have always had given the fact we are part of a larger listed organisation, and due to the nature of the work we do. It is important for us to continue delivering a consistent service to our customers. We were therefore able to ensure all our staff could carry on working throughout this time of uncertainty, and switched to home working without any issue. We already have the secure technology in place to support this approach and so it has worked well.
4. Now we are slowly coming out of lockdown, how are you tackling this, what are your plans?
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Some members of the Landmark team have returned to our
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offices, which have been adapted to provide the social distancing CM
that is expected, however the majority continue to operate
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When we look at what is happening out in the market, it is clear CMY that many law firms have decided to continue working remotely, with cloud-based software and tech making this a highly practical K
option. Of course, we are also seeing others who are going back into their offices – it remains to seen what will happen over the next year.
5. Have you seen different sectors of Law, more affected than others, if so which eg. Conveyancing
We predominantly work with property lawyers and conveyancers and so this is the area of law we work the most. It’s been an extraordinary year for the sector, with lockdown effectively pausing the property market and then, upon reopening, the Chancellor has introduced the Stamp Duty holiday until March 2021 and so we have seen a huge acceleration in transaction volumes. It creates a pressure for property lawyers to be able to meet this deadline, and so the reliance on easy to access data which supports their due diligence process is likely to only increase.
6. How do you see the future for you, your firm and the wider profession?
The next six months will be a whirlwind for property lawyers and conveyancers as they grapple with a surge of transactions as people look to capitalise on the Stamp Duty holiday. Of course, in between all of this we have Brexit to contend with. This may add another layer of uncertainty to an already pressured workforce. From our perspective, we will want to provide the steady reassurance that we always have, by delivering accurate location-based due diligence that can be relied upon – which is backed by the highest protection in the industry, with remediation cover of up to £250,000.53 quarter page.pdf 1 24/07/2020 17:21
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