Conveyancing Association launch Working Group on BIS ‘Call for evidence’

The Conveyancing Association (CA), the leading trade body for the conveyancing industry, has today (22^nd June 2016) announced it has established a Working Group to deliver its response to the forthcoming ‘Call for evidence’ on the home buying process from the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS).

The yet-to-be published ‘Call for evidence’, due later in the year, will focus on all areas of the process in an attempt to cut down on the many thousands of abortive transactions that take place each year.

The CA, like many stakeholders within the industry, has been working closely with the BIS and believe the Government department will be seeking information on how they can increase transparency and certainty between all parties, cut down on unnecessary delays and costs, and to provide a smoother conveyancing process by potentially providing more information to potential purchasers up-front.

In order to reflect the importance of this Government programme, the CA has established its own Working Group which will be made up of the executive, management committee and member firm representatives and will seek to develop the Association’s own views on the process and the changes that should be made.

From these discussions it will present its own White Paper and, at its Annual Conference in December, will debate and discuss all areas of the ‘Call to evidence’ before delivering its initial response.

Beth Rudolf, Director of Delivery at the Conveyancing Association, commented:

“While political events and regulatory intervention have dominated the agenda for some time, we see the publication of its forthcoming ‘Call for evidence’ by the BIS as presenting a real opportunity for the conveyancing profession to establish what we would like to see change and happen within the process. Our ongoing campaigns will feed into this in areas such as tackling fraud, improving the leasehold process and working with lenders to cut down on delays between them and conveyancers. However, given the depth and breadth of this Government initiative, this represents the chance to draw a line in the sand and to help formulate and develop how the conveyancing process should look like in the future.

“At our recent Management Committee Meeting we decided to establish a Working Group which will specifically focus on the ‘Call for evidence’ and will develop our response to it via the publication of a White Paper. There was significant interest from many members to be involved and we believe our work in this area will be able to provide valuable experience and insight into how the BIS might wish to proceed. This feels like a pivotal moment for how the home-buying process develops and the CA is committed to ensuring the views of our members are fully represented and we are able to support the BIS in delivering on what are sure to be some wide-reaching aims and ambitions.”