Conveyancing review

Smart partnerships can ensure excellent service, even in busy market

Karen Rodrigues

sales director, eConveyancer

There will be some across the mortgage industry who thought that the end of the stamp duty holidays would see activity drop back to more modest levels. After all, without that tax incentive, would there still be demand for homebuyers to move up or down the housing ladder? The reality has been rather different. While the frenzy of those heightened activity levels has not been sustained, the truth is that the purchase market is still extremely busy. Intermediaries will know only too well that there are still an awful lot of borrowers desperate to get on with house purchases as quickly as possible, with this demand continuing to drive up house prices.

According to the latest house-price index from the Office for National Statistics, annual house price growth now sits at an extraordinary 12.8 per cent, meaning that the typical home has risen in value by £32,000 to £283,000. Indeed, it’s worth highlighting that, according to the government’s estimates, the number of transactions likely to take place in 2022/23 is on course to push 300,000, making it the second-busiest year in the last five years. However, it’s not just the purchase market that remains incredibly busy, with intermediaries also reporting significant levels of interest in remortgages. This makes a lot of sense; the incredible rate of inflation means that many households are looking at ways to reduce their outgoings, and with mortgage payments being the largest payment most people make on a monthly basis, it follows that remortgaging to a cheaper deal would appeal.

This drive to remortgage is becoming ever stronger given the situation with interest rates. We have seen a handful of base rate hikes this year already, with the Bank of England now moving the base rate to 1.75 per cent following the largest increase in decades.

Those increases are feeding into higher rates on mortgage deals, with the result that many borrowers are choosing to move now in order to try to secure a lower fixed rate for longer.

DEALING WITH HEAVY WORKLOADS

These activity levels obviously put intermediaries under enormous pressure. The reality is that mortgage advice has not been a 9-to-5 job for some time – all advisers will have tales of late nights and weekends spent working in order to help a client secure the funds they need in time. Given these heavy workloads, it’s important for intermediaries to think carefully about the partnerships that can help take some of that strain away and allow them to work more efficiently. Conveyancing is a good example. Helping a client find the right conveyancer for their case can be a timeintensive process, particularly if the case is a little out of the ordinary – a buyer looking to purchase through a limited company, for example, or using a scheme like Help to Buy. Specialism makes a big difference here, while it’s also important to acknowledge the difficulties that some legal firms are having with their own workloads. The sad truth is that the heightened activity we’ve seen in recent years is not something that many legal firms are set up properly to handle.

This has obviously resulted in substantial delays for some transactions, with typical deals now taking weeks longer to go through than was the case before the pandemic. [I]t’s worth highlighting that ... the number of [house purchase] transactions likely to take place in 2022/23 is on course to push 300,000

Those delays can be a disaster for borrowers, whether they want to purchase or remortgage.

THE ROLE OF THE PANEL MANAGER

Given this situation, being able to identify a conveyancer who will not only understand the crucial elements of the case but also have the capacity to do so in a timely manner is absolutely vital. That’s where a panel manager can prove so useful. Within a few minutes you can swiftly get a quote for your client, sorting the results by features like location, price, or ratings. With a top panel manager, you can also enjoy peace of mind that the conveyancers on offer will actually be able to take on the case. At eConveyancer, we hold a weekly pipeline review of cases with the top legal firms on our panel. It means that we can ensure that a high level of service is maintained, meaning our intermediary partners and their clients are enjoying a consistent experience.

Because of the volumes that we transact with those top legal firms, we – and our intermediaries – benefit from a buying power that will not be the case with a high-street conveyancer. It’s somewhat akin to using a mortgage club.

This industry is built on relationships and partnerships, on working together to deliver the best possible experience to our customers. Identifying the right panel manager can not only reduce your own workload, but also ensure that your clients’ cases go through swiftly and stress-free. M I