tm blog

tmgroup were highly commended in the Modern Law Awards for the category Supporting the Industry (26+ employees) last week at a prestigious ceremony at The Hurlingham Club in London.

The awards were launched to celebrate and identify sparkling talent and success in entrepreneurship, market development, business management and best practice in the modern legal services arena.

tmgroup’s award entry centred around the introduction of their new Quote Conversion Tool, one of their recent innovations in the conveyancing sector: a free online solution for conveyancers to help improve how they handle new business enquiries.

Marketing Director Ben Harris commented: “We were delighted to have been highly commended for the work our whole team put into supporting the industry and particularly the services we provide to conveyancers.”

Harris continued “A lot of time went into bringing the Quote Conversion Tool to our customers – from market research & customer workshops to product development and design – so we’re thrilled to have been acknowledged in this category.”

tmgroup will soon announce more innovations designed to transform the property transaction for the better, to make life easier, quicker and safer for all involved.

We take driving off of our drive and onto the road as a given, we don’t even think about it: we just do it.

But if you have a quick search on the Internet for ‘ransom strips’ I suspect you will surprised how many stories pop up. With a few notable exceptions they are reported in the local rather than national press which may explain why they go under the radar, but they are surprisingly prevalent.

In October we asked conveyancers: “When conducting a commercial property transaction how often do you order a highways property search?”

The results were as follows:

Several sinkholes have opened up across the UK in recent weeks, with some as large as 20m in diameter, causing significant inconvenience to residents and adverse effects to property prices in affected areas.

In Gosforth, "the hole has revealed old mine workings in an area which used to have a number of pits" and Newcastle and the Coal Authority are still assessing the extent of the collapse.

Ever increasing fraud levels and increasingly sophisticated methods of fraud are, it seems, an ever-present threat now for the property transaction and sadly this isn’t a new problem. Back in 2008 research by American Express identified ID theft as the biggest security concern for 43% of individuals in the survey - higher even than street crime. If the poll was re-run today that 43% figure would probably be higher.

Conveyancers will be all too familiar with the increasing levels of fraud and the almost exponential growth in the number of warnings the SRA have issued over the last few years in relation to bogus law firms. In turn, the last few SRA Risk Reviews have had fraud as the central theme.

Probably in response to the latest SRA Risk Review where the three primary risks were fraud related (bogus law firms, money laundering and cybercrime), the Law Society on 21st August 2015 published a practice note aimed at helping law firms recover if they fall victim to a client account scam.

On the back of the new practice note, in September, TM Group asked conveyancers: “Has the latest Law Society Practice Note led to any changes at your practice?”

The results were surprising with at least a third of conveyancers stating that they hadn’t even heard of the practice note (see chart below).

Every month, we ask a topical question to help gain a consensus on various issues that affect property solicitors. This month we're exploring the Highways Search.

Whilst it's standard practice to order a local search or SIM (Search of Index Map) to check the property boundary, the problem with the local search is that it will tell you which roads are adopted but it won't tell you if your client can actually access their property from the road if, for example, a ransom strip exists.

Likewise, particularly in a commercial property transaction, the SIM search plan is not detailed enough to show you the nooks and crannies where access problems can lurk - there’s your problem and that's why you need something more robust and comprehensive such as a Highways Search. This month we're asking:

TM Group has begun its programme of regional conveyancing CPD sessions around the UK, featuring a range of expert industry speakers.

Entitled ‘Driving & Adapting to Change’, the series of five regional events showcases content from TM Group’s national conveyancing conference of the same name, which took place in April 2015 at RIBA in central London.

The first two events of the roadshow, in Maidstone & Nottingham, boasted a 100% recommendation rate from delegates and the remaining 3 events promise equally informative and engaging sessions, with each focussing on the small changes that conveyancers can make that will have a big impact on their businesses.

The expert guest speakers are charged with providing three useful tips in quick-fire sessions designed to help time-poor conveyancers get the most out of their CPD.

What sets these events apart is that delegates get to set the agenda. With interactive roundtable sessions, conveyancers ask the questions that they want answered and can get their voices heard in small peer groups.

With practicality in mind, opportunities for downtime spaced strategically throughout the day, give conveyancers the chance to digest information or catch up on emails over a coffee.

Topics covered:
• How to stay responsive to changes in legislation
• Managing risk
• Dealing with ever-more demanding consumers
• Reputation management
• New business conversion
• Attracting and retaining the best talent.

Next stop is in Bristol at the Radisson Blu Hotel on Thursday 22nd October.

Click on the links below to register:

Bristol - 22nd Oct
Bradford - 28th Oct
Chester - 29th Oct

During July, the SRA published the latest Risk Outlook 2015/16 with an overview of their risk priorities. The identified risks fell neatly into either an internal risk: such as service standards, acting with integrity and standards of service; or external risk: notably bogus law firms, money laundering and cybercrime.

In August, we asked you what you perceived to be the major risks as identified in the latest SRA report.  The findings were startlingly clear as the chart below shows. 

Internal risks

There is no obvious concern with any of the SRA’s ‘internal’ risks, with firms confident in the way they conduct themselves and act with clients, which is probably to be expected. After all it is unlikely that any of these issues would be aired publically in a survey!

External risks

Of the external risks, the primary concern was money laundering, followed by bogus law firms, and lastly cybercrime and security.  Perhaps money laundering, or should I say the prevention of it, may well have a higher profile at the moment on the back of the SRA’s focus on this during the first half of the year.

Bogus law firms

'Bogus law firms' has been identified as a high risk area for around two years now and was identified in SRA Risk Review in 2014. The number of reports to the SRA about bogus law firms continues to increase and so does the number of scam alerts, with 183 issued in 2014 which is up from 97 in 2013 and only 19 in 2012. A worrying trend.

Cybercrime & information security

The final issue of cybercrime and security is perhaps the glue that joins these other issues up. Firms holding client accounts are vulnerable to the risk of theft of confidential data which could lead to the theft of client money held in these accounts. The most common types of cybercrime in the legal sector are 'phishing' emails, cloned websites and the interception of solicitor-client emails.

So rather than viewing these three issues separately, perhaps they can be seen as one with a secure IT system supported by strong processes being the key? Without all three being addressed there will always be a weakness to be exploited.

With cybercrime and fraud on the rise and increasingly sophisticated being used it can feel like conveyancers are in the eye of an increasingly worsening storm. However there are some simple steps and a lot of excellent information readily available to help with these risks.

Practical steps to take

SRA

http://www.sra.org.uk/risk/risk.page
http://www.sra.org.uk/risk/resources/risks-associated-bogus-firms.page
http://www.sra.org.uk/risk/resources/risk-money-laundering.page

The Law Society

The Law Society has published a Practice Note in August, providing advice on what to do should a firm fall victim to a scam.

Searches

To assist firms in complying with the legal and regulatory requirements there are some inexpensive searches available for them to include as part of their conveyancing service, which includes:

• - Making independent verification checks using Lawyer Checker which is only £10 and widely available; and
• - Online AML verification which is readily available, inexpensive, comprehensive and instantaneous and covers UK and International clients from about £4 per name and £10 for commercial checks.

How good is your firm at handling new business enquiries? We sought to find out.

In August 2015, we conducted a ‘mystery shopper’-style study of 100 conveyancing firms to determine how effective they are when quoting & closing prospective new clients.

We then wrote a report detailing 11 steps that conveyancers should take to improve their customer service to enable them to convert more new business enquiries into paying clients.

Download your copy of the report.

The report focuses on three main areas:

Online Presence

The study revealed that many conveyancing firms have room for improvement when it comes to optimising their online presence.

Whilst it is good news that 75% of conveyancing firms already have a Google Business Page, there are several areas in which conveyancers can improve their online presence, including advertising customer reviews on search results pages, ensuring their website is mobile friendly and displaying contact details prominently on their homepage.

Building Rapport

Researchers documented that, whilst on the whole calls were handled satisfactorily, there is a significant opportunity for forward-thinking firms to differentiate themselves with superior customer service.

The majority of conveyancers are not attempting to engage their potential clients but simple steps such as introducing themselves or explaining the process that lies ahead would go a long way to building rapport.

Converting more enquiries

Finally, conveyancers could convert more enquiries if they treated each call with a more focused approach and professional follow-up.

The study revealed that 31% of conveyancers offered no quotation for their services at all whilst a further 24% gave a quote over the phone but failed to follow it up with a professional, branded email.

Download the report

On the 20th August 2015, the Law Society published a new practice note: Protecting your firm if you fall victim to a scam.

Criminals use a variety of methods to extract vital information from law firms; among which is the creation of bogus law firms that are set up to impersonate real ones in order to dupe conveyancers into transferring client money to fraudulent bank accounts.

In fact, according to the SRA, 701 bogus law firms were reported to them in 2014 which was a 28% increase on the figure from 2013. In light of this new practice note, this month we're asking you: Has the latest Law Society Practice Note led to any changes at your practice? 

POLL NOW CLOSED

With Russel Tinnion, Spatial Team Lead

As part of the regular improvements to our search order platform, we are delighted to announce that we have added a free automatic boundary outlining feature to our mapping.

What does that mean for me?
When you locate a property as part of your case creation, either by entering an address or by positioning a red dot on the map, we’ll then present a boundary outline for you automatically, sourced from the Land Registry.

So it’s a good thing?
Absolutely, it will now be much easier & quicker for you to mark-up case plan maps.

What if the boundary outline is wrong or needs editing?
Generally the boundary outline should be a faithful representation of the property extent but, if you would like to make any amends, you can edit the boundary outline in the usual way before proceeding.

Are there any instances in which I won’t be presented with an outline automatically?
Currently we can only access data for freehold properties and therefore a boundary outline will not be presented to you automatically for: leasehold properties; manually-entered addresses; unregistered property; or properties made up of multiple separate boundaries. On these occasions, you are free to draw or upload your plan as you have done in the past.

Where are you getting the data from?
We’re working with the INSPIRE Index Polygons dataset which is an open source dataset from the Land Registry, developed to comply with the European Union INSPIRE Directive. Read more about INSPIRE

Does this INSPIRE Index polygon represent the Registered Title extent?
No, the extent of the land contained in any registered title cannot be established from the INSPIRE Index Polygons. This can only be identified from the individual title plan.