In the Spotlight with Harpal Singh, Broker Conveyancing

FR: You’ve been a strong proponent of advisers taking more control of their client’s conveyancing choices. Why is that?

There are a number of reasons but I think the important point here is about control and being involved (and able to track) this vitally important part of the process. In my view, very few purchasers/remortgagors will have a clear idea about the solicitor/conveyancer they are going to use for a transaction. The default reaction in this case can be to opt for a ‘family solicitor’ or recommendation from a friend or relative. In today’s conveyancing market this could be completely the wrong choice and could add considerable delays simply because the firm is not a specialist and doesn’t see conveyancing as a priority.

Advisers are not just able to provide advice on the mortgage but have access to distributors like ourselves who can source the most competitively-priced, and the most efficient, conveyancing firms in the marketplace. This gives the client the best chance of getting their transaction completed within the necessary timescale and therefore keeps everyone happy. Far better we think to actively advise on conveyancing rather than let your client go off and choose a firm which, for example, isn’t even on the lender’s panel or has one member of staff covering this area who just so happens to be on holiday for the next two weeks.

Add into this is the extra income that advisers can earn from being involved in conveyancing and I believe there are many compelling reasons why advisory firms should not neglect this potentially lucrative area.

FR: Do estate agents still have the upper hand in securing the conveyancing business?

Not necessarily. For example, what do most people do before they even look at purchasing a property? They work out how much they can borrow and how much they can afford. In this post-MMR world, it’s very important to understand whether you can even secure the necessary finance so I believe many more people are seeing their mortgage adviser first, rather than immediately racing to their local agents. This means that advisers do have a growing opportunity to advise on the conveyancing part of the transaction before the agent – the important point is to set out all the potential services that the adviser offers at the outset. That gives them the best chance to secure buy-in from the client as they’ll be fully aware they don’t have to go anywhere else for advice.

FR: Why are some advisers fully immersed in cross-sale activity in areas like conveyancing but others are not?

It’s the nature of any business and those that run them. Some advisers like to ‘stick to their knitting’ which is the mortgage transaction, and when mortgage business levels are strong this might seem like the right approach to take. However, if the post-Credit Crunch period has taught us anything, it’s that advisory firms need to diversify and continue diversifying – even when they see an up-take in their core business. Those firms that have survived and thrived in the past five years have been those that covered off as many product areas as possible – not just the mortgage but GI, protection, conveyancing, perhaps even wills and other legal services.

We all know that clients have many more financial services needs than just the mortgage and therefore why not offer as many product avenues for these people to walk down. And if you can’t offer them yourself then simply ensure that you have introducer relationships with those that can.

This is not rocket science but it is making a commitment to understand these other cross-selling opportunities and to offer a quality service for each of them. One of the easiest ways to do this in conveyancing is to use a distributor like Broker Conveyancing where everything is handled for you and you can have total confidence in the portal and the service offered by the firms we have on our panel. To us, it’s a no-brainer because the work level is minimal, the income can be significant, the client has no reason to go elsewhere and the adviser can keep total control over the transaction. In that scenario, what’s not to like?

FR: Broker Conveyancing says two new brokers switch to use the portal every day. Why?

Well part of the reason is a greater recognition of conveyancing as an opportunity for advisory firms and then when they look at the distributors active in the marketplace, they can see there are a number of differentiators between us and the others. Firstly, we have a low panel fee, which is a really important component of the overall legal fee for the client. I don’t think some brokers/clients are aware of how large panel fees can be and they substantially increase the amount the client has to pay for conveyancing. We keep ours extremely low – typically half those of our competitors – which obviously makes our overall pricing much lower. This will definitely be appreciated by the client.

Price is very important in this business and I can say categorically, that we are the cheapest in this market. Much of this is down to our lower panel fee but we also look after our solicitor firms – they get paid a fair fee and deliver a quite exceptional service. We only work with the top firms in the conveyancing market – those who can integrate with us, are committed to quality, meet our standards, have the necessary resources and capacity, and are the best of breed. They wouldn’t be on our panel if this wasn’t the case and it provides our broker users and their clients with a great level of confidence that they’re going to be well looked after.

Secondly, we offer a £25 loyalty fee on every case that completes, meaning extra income for the broker, and thirdly, we pay on exchange so the broker doesn’t have to wait for completion before getting their income. These three fundamentals mean we are the portal of choice for an increasing number of brokers.

FR: Thousands of conveyancing firms still complete cases every year however you’ve long suggested that the days of the high-street, smaller conveyancing firm are numbered. Why is that?

It’s certainly true that the regular statistics do show thousands of firms completing conveyancing cases each year however delve a little deeper into the stats and you can see something of a sea change, especially in the last few years. The number of firms completing very small numbers of cases has dropped considerably and we’re now at a point where an increasing percentage of all conveyancing cases are being handled by, what we would call, the specialist volume operators.

This is quite telling and shows the movement that has happened and clearly the message is getting through about the potential pitfalls in using high-street, family operators where conveyancing is by no means core work, there is little appetite to do the work, and the costs for the client can be considerable.

My view remains the same as it has done for a number of years and that is the movement towards the specialists will continue and that the numbers of those doing very small levels of conveyancing will continue to shrink.

FR: What do clients get out of using a larger specialist rather than their family solicitor firm?

The word ‘specialist’ is key here – these larger firms are completely set up to conduct this type of business all day/every day and therefore they are absolutely in tune with what can happen with a process, the potential hold-ups, where problems might lie, and how these can be solved quickly. Again, they have large numbers of dedicated employees all focused on conveyancing – the smaller, family-type businesses do not – which can provide certainty and confidence to all stakeholders within the transaction.

The volume operators are going to be able to work for all lenders and they are going to be able to work quickly and efficiently, plus (rather importantly) they are likely to be the most competitive on cost. If you are a business completely set-up in every regard to conduct this sort of business and the alternative is a firm that has limited resources and is, quite frankly, not that interested in conveyancing, then who would you choose?

We only have firms in the former category on our panel which means that whoever the adviser recommends is going to be providing a first-class service unhindered by the problems that often beset smaller firms when they work on a conveyancing case. In the conveyancing market, big is definitely beautiful.