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A recent tm:tv session has highlighted that the property industry still has a long way to go before it can be considered truly diverse. Hosted by mio’s Emma Vigus, the panel representing estate agents, surveyors and conveyancers shared their experiences of how the industry is failing to offer opportunities to ethnic minorities, as well as those identifying as disabled or members of the LBGTQ+ community. 

One of the biggest cultural challenges in property is around “does your face fit?”, as Elliott Purcell explains, “When I was passed over for a promotion I wholeheartedly deserved, one of the biggest learnings for me was the prevalence of the “does your face fit?” culture. I hadn’t even thought about it before, but when I looked around I realised that black inclusion at a higher level is very minimal. I’ve worked for 3 large corporate estate agents over the years, and never once seen someone above Area Manager that has been of an ethnic background. It’s tough. As a black person, I feel I have to be exceptional to even be classed in the same category as others.”

It isn’t just about the colour of your skin, as Kate Charrington says, “As a people-facing industry, there are strong stereotypes about what you should look like to the general public. In the past, I’ve even been asked to ‘wear a bit of lippy’ by a senior manager. I don't think anyone needs to conform to this in 2020, but it really stuck with me. These stereotypes are even perpetuated by our customers, including a young women who once answered the door and said ‘oh, I was expecting a surveyor, an older guy’.” 

These barriers aren’t just about missing out on promotion opportunities either, as Sharon Singer confirms, “Over the years, I’ve been excluded from several social events. When you miss out on these, you inevitably also lose the opportunity to grow your professional network, which is equally vital in building a successful career.”

You can watch the full session here:

Lack of management training across senior property professionals only exacerbates the issue

A lack of formal management training across the industry is cited as one of the key reasons behind this feeling of exclusion, as people promoted for their technical expertise often don’t have the necessary experience to understand and support the needs of a diverse team. This can have a knock-on effect on everything from how safe an individual feels about being open about their sexuality, to whether or not an individual is fairly considered for a promotion. 

As Sharon Singer says, “We need to be training up our managers with the necessary inclusive management leadership skills, and also making sure people who are promoted to managers are considered for their people skills, as well as their technical ability. Some people are just not people managers, and this creates challenges within the teams they manage.”

When people speak out and share their experiences it helps others feel safer too

Despite the bleak picture, the outlook is considerably brighter. Minorities across the industry are already speaking out about their experiences on public platforms such as LinkedIn, which is making a positive difference in creating safer, more inclusive working environments where people feel free to be themselves. 

As Joe Ellison confirms, “Being a gay man working in surveying, I found I didn’t want to talk to my colleagues about my private life for fear of damaging my professional reputation. However, I got fed up with people assuming I was straight and recently came out on LinkedIn to help set the record straight, and it’s made things a lot better.” 

And every voice counts, as Sharon Singer supports, “A lot of people stay quiet about their sexuality out of fear of what could happen, as sadly there are examples of horrible people online and in the workplace. However, the more that people that come out and are celebrated, the more it becomes the norm. It’s a very hard thing to do to come out on LinkedIn, but it does help other people in same position.”

It’s not enough to simply add a rainbow to your company logo – you have to live and breathe it

Despite this sense of progress however, there is still some confusion about what diversity looks and feels like on a day-to-day basis, as Sharon Singer continues, “People are going to pride marches or putting a rainbow on their logo and thinking it’s ‘job done’, but it’s not enough. Supporting true diversity needs to be part of a wider strategy linked to business objectives in order to be successful. The challenge is to encourage senior leaders to be having these conversations with the board.” 

As such measures can take a while to permeate, particularly in larger organisations, it’s equally important that leaders are educated on matters of diversity and disability, so they can be more accessible to their team members in need of additional support, as Martin Whitehorn explains, “Simply taking an interest and making reasonable adjustments can make a big difference to someone’s life, as well as improve accessibility to opportunities within the profession.”

It’s very encouraging to see that steps are already being taken to highlight the needs of people with disabilities in the workplace. For example, the ‘Legally Disabled’ survey has recently been published, exploring the career experiences of disabled people working in the legal profession, and exposing how the industry norms of billable hours, targets, and presenteeism are not conducive to inclusivity. 

As Martin Whitehorn continues, “People with disabilities are routinely getting overlooked for promotion as, for a multitude of reasons, they sometimes physically aren't able to put in as many hours of chargeable time as their colleagues. There needs to be a renewed focus. As with mothers returning to the workplace, there needs to be an emphasis on the quality of the work you put in – not the time you put in.”

Overall, as the tm:tv session came to a close, it was clear that there are positive changes afoot, however property professionals must do more to address diversity issues in the workplace, as Emma Vigus concludes, “As with any kind of change, we have to live and breathe it. It has to be embedded in every way a business works. It’s a very difficult thing to do, but it’s the only way to make a real and permanent change.”

To view the session in full please click here

On 1st October, Landmark are re-launching their SiteSolutions Combined report, as well as making some price changes to their commercial reports.

Landmark have also announced new coal reports COMING SOON to tmconvey.

RE-LAUNCHED SiteSolutions Combined

The SiteSolutions Combined commercial due diligence report will be relaunched on 1st October, following feedback from the majority of the top 50 law firms in the UK. 

While continuing to be the only report in the market offering a fully manual contaminated land assessment and fully manual flood risk assessment, a number of key improvements have been made to support ease and speed of use, including: 

> Colour coded front page and report sections

> Clear flags for Permits and Environmental Hazards

> Clear navigation to key sections 

> NEW hyperlinks 

> Front page consultant contact  

Additional benefits include: 

> Assessment accuracy – Every report is written and quality assessed by an expert consultant

> Reliability – Intelligent risk assessment informed by CIE compliant data and mapping

> Advice – Bespoke recommendations tailored to your transaction

> Support – Report author contact details on front page of every report

Click here to see a sample report

Price changes

Here is a summary of the price changes – coming into effect on 1st October:

COMING SOON: Landmark Coal and Landmark CON29M

Landmark have also recently announced their new coal mining report for residential property due diligence across the UK (Landmark Coal), as well as their new, approved and accredited official CON29M report (Landmark CON29M) – COMING SOON to tmconvey.

If you have any questions, please get in touch with your tm Account Manager.

tmgroup, the leading provider of property searches and data, has announced its new partnership with Thirdfort to offer conveyancers the latest in risk mitigation technology. Onboarding clients is one of the biggest risks for conveyancers, requiring a lengthy, time-consuming process to perform necessary due diligence – and even then risking something “falling through the cracks” of human error. 

Using Thirdfort’s simple and secure customer-facing app – now available via tmconvey and tmconnect – conveyancers can onboard clients up to 80% faster by empowering them to complete digital identity and source of funds checks remotely. With data provided by Experian, LexisNexis, ComplyAdvantage, and more, Thirdfort also offers a reliable way to carry out PEPs, sanctions and adverse media checks.

Thirdfort makes it far easier to catch out fake ID documents 

Partnering with Onfido, whose technology is trusted by Barclays and Santander, Thirdfort verifies identity documents in minutes and uses facial recognition technology (similar to that used by e-gates at border control) to cross check the identity – all to help give conveyancers confidence about who they’re doing business with. 

This is particularly pertinent given that fake ID documents – made with such attention to detail it can be difficult to spot the subtle differences – can be bought online for as little as £5, and that property continues to account for over 70% of fraud in the UK. 

Olly Thornton-Berry, MD and Co-founder of Thirdfort commented:

“We are thrilled to partner with tmgroup to stamp out fraud in property transactions. Now more than ever, solicitors and conveyancers need to be diligent about levels of fraud which have increased during the pandemic. Thirdfort is the new standard in legal security and we are excited to work with tmgroup to offer their customers automated client ID and source of funds checks – helping them to speed up client onboarding and dramatically reduce risk.”

The ‘purchase funds’ questionnaire makes it easy for clients to prove where their money is from

The app also features a questionnaire which prompts property buyers to account for the source of any purchase funds. This information can then be cross-checked with bank statements retrieved through the unique ‘bank linking’ feature which uses Government backed Open Banking technology. Supported by an FCA licence, this allows customers to login to their online banking securely via the Thirdfort app and select the financial information they wish to share. The findings of all checks are then sent to the conveyancer in a single, clear to read report – including a scan of the photo ID for their records.

Paul Albone, CTO at tmgroup commented: 

“We’re so excited to be partnering with Thirdfort and launching their innovative client app which takes the pain out of client ID verification, supporting remote working practices, and helps to minimise the areas of financial fraud in a property transaction. We had excellent collaboration between the teams when it came to designing how we could integrate their product into our own tm platforms. Not only did they have a great API which allowed us to implement a seamless client journey between the two service offerings, but they were receptive to enhancements and we have several more in the pipeline.”

For more, request information here. You can also get in touch with your tm Account Manager or take a look at the Thirdfort website. 

About Thirdfort

o Thirdfort was founded by schoolfriends Olly Thornton-Berry and Jack Bidgood after a friend was defrauded out of £25,000 whilst buying a flat in London. With a strong desire to make home buying easier and rebuild trust between lawyers and clients, Thirdfort won a place on Mishcon de Reya’s prestigious MDR LAB programme. They worked closely with MDR’s top lawyers and advisors to understand the legal and conveyancing processes, identify the issues and build out Thirdfort’s proposition. 

o Lawyers initiate a check and monitor progress via a web app. Users carry out their onboarding checks via a mobile app. 

o ID check: the user takes a photo of their identity document, a selfie and a short video. ID scanning and facial recognition technology authenticates the ID document and matches the person in the selfie/video to that document. 

o Source of funds: for transactions involving large sums of money, lawyers must investigate where that money comes from to combat money laundering. This usually involves collecting bank statements and the client filling out a paper questionnaire. Thirdfort uses Open Banking technology to let the user securely connect to their online banking and retrieve digital bank statements. Thirdfort has also built a questionnaire into the app for the user to complete. 

o Thirdfort is the only company in the legal space to combine an ID AND source of funds product to offer complete client onboarding. 

o Alex Chesterman voted Thirdfort his startup of the year in the Times in Dec-19

Launching on the 7th September – Groundsure GeoRisk and GeoRisk +

This brand new set of reports provided by the experts at Groundsure and Mining Searches UK, cover in-depth and vast datasets across key areas of ground risk:

• Non coal-mining (with opinion provided by an in-house mining expert)
• Ground stability (natural and non-natural)
• Satellite monitoring (recorded 'real-world' ground movement)
• Coal mining (GeoRisk +)
• Brine (GeoRisk +)

With the enhanced product alerts if they advise that no risks have been identified, then you will be able to provide a GeoRisk Certificate, providing additional assurance that no risks have been identified. If the property is neither on the coal field or in a Cheshire brine affected area, you can save money with the non-coal option (GeoRisk).

As a result of this new all in one solution, Groundsure will be discontinuing their Ground Stability report from the 7th September – but all of the data and expert analysis that this report provided will now all be included in the all-in-one cost-effective GeoRisk report. 

If you would like to find out more please contact your Account Manager. 

From the 14th September Terrafirma Ground Report will now include a Coastal Hazards module. The new module is a site-specific assessment of the risk from Coastal Hazards, such as erosion (coastline retreat) and inundation (sea flooding) over time. 

How will the Coastal Hazards module help you?

• Considers the impact of climate change on coastal hazards 
• Provides a clear front page summary with colour-coded UserKey to ensure relevant parties within the transaction are informed 
• Key information is provided on Shoreline Management Plan (SMP) 
• Assessment of coastal erosion and risk of total collapse and/or loss of property 
• Provides a clear timeline for expected coastal regression at property 
• Expert opinion and professional recommendations ensure parties in the transaction do not need to interpret data or findings 
• £10 million professional indemnity applied to all property report risk assessment and professional opinion

If you would like to find out more please contact your account manager today.

Book your free e-ROT Personalised Remote Tutorial here.

For many conveyancers, the practice of preparing a Report on Title is an onerous task and one that hasn’t changed for over 30 years, still dependent upon word documents which require editing in every single case. 

With conveyancers constantly under immense time pressures and often being chased by multiple parties on each file they are working on whilst trying to get their transactions exchanged and completed, it is vital conveyancers make use of good technology to increase efficiency and profitability across the whole property department. 

Most conveyancers hate their current process and there is no central body that takes responsibility for updating the content, unlike surveyors who rely upon RICS to provide them with the wording for their reports.

Without a central resource, there is no way for law firms to benchmark the standard of their reports against others and yet the Report on Title document is considered to reflect the quality of the legal work delivered to the client and therefore should be of good and marketable quality.

More concerning, Report on Title is THE document that the client relies upon and so will be used in court in the event of litigation in the future.

Cost is always a barrier to change and so many law firms have not implemented technology that can dramatically speed up the preparation of Report on Title reports and standardise the look, feel and language used. 

The good news? There is an affordable electronic solution which simplifies the preparation of Report on Title documents and makes it a fast and easy process. By providing pre-set paragraphs and the facility to produce mini-reports, documents can be produced with the minimum of fuss. The end result is a professionally produced, branded report to send to your clients.

e-ROT is a Lexsure product that enables conveyancers to produce a Report on Title in a fraction of the time it normally takes. e-ROT provides increased protection, consistency and efficiency to building the most important - yet tedious and time-consuming - document in a purchase transaction.

We ran a live demo webinar back on 8th September 2020. Don't worry if you missed it. You can watch it here. 

Book your free e-ROT Personalised Remote Tutorial here.

Contact your account manager to find out more or send us an email 

Much has been written about this year, often using terms like “unprecedented” or “extraordinary” to describe the impact of the pandemic on our personal and professional lives.  For the property industry, the impact of the coronavirus will be felt through changes made to how we work in the longer term and in the short term, we have a number of challenges and opportunities ahead of us.

The extraordinary return of demand in the residential property market, with the added incentive of the stamp duty holiday, has surprised many.  The challenge of managing the sharp increase in new instructions whilst ensuring the right team members are available and adjusting to new ways of working are being felt by law firms, local authorities and search providers alike.    For clients working in the commercial sector, these unprecedented times lead to increased pressure against deadlines as the potential cost of any delay could be significant as the national or global situation changes.  

At tm, the service provided is always our priority and we are working on your behalf to ensure you have the latest  information at the point of order and access to support when needed.   We are proactively chasing orders and working hard to reduce delays and queries, to deliver on time for you and your clients.  

We are in regular contact with our suppliers to ensure you have a reliable expected delivery date at the point of order and our COVID-19 blog lists all suppliers that are still operating with significantly delayed turnaround times.  The headlines to note are as follows.

Local Authority Highways Searches are currently unavailable or significantly delayed in East Riding of Yorkshire, Gateshead, Greenwich and Rhondda Cynon Taff.

Our Service Delivery team are working daily behind the scenes to get the latest news from suppliers and chase any searches that are past the expected date.   When you place an order, the latest expected delivery date will take any delays into account and if anything changes as your orders progress, we will let you know and update the delivery dates accordingly. 

Many suppliers have placed restrictions on chasing early for orders but our fantastic Client Support team are on hand to help you with any urgent cases.  Through the tmgroup website, CLS and First Title insurance policies are available, offering Search Validation insurance for any matters where a deadline cannot be met.  

At tmgroup, as a business with its roots in technology, during the last few months we have continued to work on our services and systems to support you in this changing market and take advantage of the opportunities this presents.  We have a number of exciting developments underway and we will be sharing this with you through the Autumn,

Conveyancers can now complete property searches with tmconvey without leaving their DPS Software Case Management System.

The integration saves fee earners and support staff time on double entry as all data is automatically passed to tmconvey from DPS. From within tmconvey, accessed directly from their DPS system, conveyancers order searches against the pre-setup case and take advantage of all the mapping and alert functionality.

Once complete, documents are then automatically saved on the DPS file history, with invoices for the search automatically sent to the firm’s accounts team as an e-chit for payment.

Jo Draper, Business Process Manager at Plymouth law firm Wolferstans and one of the first users of the integration, said: “The DPS-tmconvey integration has saved a lot of time for fee earners in our Commercial Conveyancing department. Rather than having to re-enter information into tmconvey that is already held in DPS, the system does it all for us. We don’t even have to worry about adding the documents to the case file once the search has been returned as that is also done automatically.”

“Fee Earners also don’t have to bother submitting the invoice to accounts as that is also done automatically. The level of automation available to the team saves us hours each month and ensures everything is recorded accurately.”

Osman Ismail, Director at DPS Software, said: “I’m delighted to be able to offer even greater value to our clients. This year we’re focussing on growing the DPS Spitfire ecosystem to connect as many different partners with DPS Spitfire to make the lives of our users easier.”

“The whole point of a Case Management System is to reduce manual admin processes to a minimum. The addition of tmconvey to our ecosystem is an essential part of this to make our conveyancing users more efficient and productive.”

Paul Albone, the tmgroup COO comments “it was a great project to work on with the DPS team and be able to extend the integration ability we already had.  This latest implementation is the first step of an API First approach that tm have adopted to make sure that users have a choice as to which application they use to access the full suite of tmconvey services.”

To find out more about the integration please speak to your Account Manager 

Enhancement to Search Insurance (Auction) Policy 

Upcoming enhancements to CLS Search Insurance (Auction) policy which will come into effect on 29th June 2020. Please see changes outlined below and what it means for you. 

There will be the following changes:

•The product name will change from Search Insurance (Auction) to Search Auction (Validation/Delay).

•It will now allow the Insured to add the policy within the auction pack.

•Any draft policies prior to Sunday 28th June 2020 created but not converted into full policies will be removed from the platform.  New draft policies will have to be created from 29th June.

Enhancements to Chancel Insurance Policies 

We would like to make you aware of an upcoming insurer change for CLS Chancel Insurance policies which will come into effect on 1st July 2020.

Please see details below with what it means for you.

•CLS PI are now able to offer 25, 35 and a perpetuity period of insurance for Chancel Insurance policies with Aviva Insurance Limited.

•Any draft policies prior to Monday 29th June 2020 created but not converted into full policies will be removed from the platform.  New draft policies will have to be created from 1 July.

This month we are focusing on our Portfolio service 

What is it?

Our Portfolio Service provides clients with a way of efficiently managing search orders for multiple properties within a transaction.  We can handle anything from 1 to 100 or 10, 000 properties – or more! 

Our dedicated Managed Services Team will process the orders on your behalf and through Portfolio Manager you are able to view the real time progress of searches, queries and status for all properties in your portfolio.  

Did you know

Typically, this service is used for firms dealing with multiple cases in a single transaction however during recent months we have seen an increase in requests for individual cases to be managed by the team, making time for you to handle other priority work.

How does it work?

Once tmgroup have the list of properties, a quote will be prepared against required searches, once approved, the Managed Services Team will manage the search order process on your behalf.  Everything from preparing the plan, managing queries and chasing the final report is overseen by your dedicated contact in our expert team.  

Who can use the service?

The Portfolio Service can be used for both residential and commercial transactions to order full search bundles, complete a bulk order of Land Registry searches or manage plot sales on a development site.  

How can I keep track of my orders? 

In addition to regular reports from the team, you can monitor progress through Portfolio Manager that will be enabled for you in tmconvey. It provides you with a real time view of the latest status for every case. 

Is there a charge to use the service?

Yes, we charge a processing fee for the service, which varies depending on the type of portfolio undertaken.

Want to know more?  

Please contact your tmgroup account manager or contact us today.