tm blog

In a recent tm:tv session, tmgroup’s CEO Joe Pepper explored how and why the residential property market continues to be a money laundering target. Joined by Simon Wilkinson, Board Member of Propertymark (NAEA), Olly Thornton-Berry, Co-Founder & MD of Thirdfort Limited, James Liffen, Partner and Head of Mishcon de Reya's Residential Property team, and Andrew Kimpton, Mortgage & Protection Adviser, Just Mortgages, the panel discussed how issues surrounding inconsistency, lack of regulation, and reliance on paper-based processes need to be addressed to help the industry move forward. You can watch the full session here.

£4.5 billion is laundered through residential property every year

Money laundering continues to be a huge challenge, with £4.5 billion of “dirty money” estimated to have gone through the residential property last year, and some believing the actual figure is closer to £30 billion. Why is this such a problem? Looking at the bigger picture, money laundering activity typically passes funds to terrorist groups, drug dealers, and other unsavoury characters. Yet there are also terrifying, direct consequences for property professionals too, with jail time and unlimited fines at stake for those (even unintentionally) finding themselves involved in such activity. 

However, we’re beginning to see changes for the better, as Simon Wilkinson, Owner of the Wilkinson Partnership and Board Member of Propertymark (NAEA) comments:

“Beyond the introduction of the 5th and 6th AML Directives, heavy fines and high profile cases have come into play. HMRC have also been doing more audits over the last few years, so property professionals are taking AML practices far more seriously. Unfortunately, we’re still seeing a handful of ‘rogue’ agents not following proper practices and leaving themselves open to sanctions, which will be a question of when they get prosecuted – not if.”

Manual processes leave gaping holes for criminals to take advantage of 

Why is residential property so attractive to money launderers? Quite simply, it enables a quick and easy way to “clean” hundreds of thousands of pounds in a single transaction. Coupled with many law firms, estate agents, and mortgage brokers still using older, manual methods to complete AML due diligence, this provides huge motivation for criminals to develop new and increasingly sophisticated methods to outsmart “the human eye”. 

In a world where fake bank statements, ID documents and utility bills can be bought online for as little as £5, the industry needs to take a long hard look at how it is practicing AML due diligence, as Simon Wilkinson, Board Member of Propertymark (NAEA) continues:

“Part of the problem is the lack of regulation across the industry resulting in poor practices being rife. This is evident in the latest research from the SLC and SRA as, at the end of last year, a series of random surveys from the SLC found that two-thirds of firms were non-compliant with their AML rules, whilst the SRA found that 65% were just using a boilerplate template for their AML due diligence.” 

Artificial Intelligence and facial recognition technology can help detect fraud

Fortunately, innovative technology providers are rising to the challenge and solutions are now available that use Artificial Intelligence, facial recognition technology, and more, to verify identity documents and source of funds – saving time and reducing risk, as Olly Thornton-Berry, Co-Founder & MD of Thirdfort Limited comments:

“It’s very easy for a fraudster to change an ID to a new address to outsmart a simple database check. However, when this is layered with Artificial Intelligence that can detect whether a document is real or fake, and facial recognition technology to prove that an individual is who they say they are, it suddenly becomes a lot harder for criminals to succeed.”

The pandemic-led surge in remote-working practices has helped to boost the adoption rates of technology-led AML checks too, as James Liffen, Partner and Head of Mishcon de Reya's Residential Property team comments:

“Since lockdown began, we’ve had to bring in practices we didn’t even think were available, such as companies doing online verification checks for us. While we were always very thorough and comfortable we were doing a good job, digital solutions now offer us that extra layer of protection. It’s proved a fantastic opportunity to see how technology will be vital moving forward. Even when we go back to the office, we’ll be using it.” 

Digital collaboration will be key to stamping out money laundering

Moving forward, it’s clear the time has come for property professionals to “go digital” in order to better protect their businesses and their clients from money laundering activity, and put a stop on the billions of pounds of “dirty money” flowing through the residential property market each year. As consumers become increasingly tech-savvy, it’s equally important that the industry moves away from the manual time-consuming processes and duplication of effort we are currently seeing. 

The industry also needs to consider practical solutions as to how multiple providers can all work together to deliver a joined up, time-saving and secure solution to everyone involved, as Andrew Kimpton, Mortgage & Protection Adviser, Just Mortgages comments: 

“As more solutions come to market, I think we’ll need to adopt a system similar to how we all currently work with credit reference agencies, allowing various property professionals to work with their choice of provider, but still receive the same information.” 

Individual providers also need to consider how they communicate and collaborate with industry partners to enable this, as Joe Pepper, CEO at tmgroup comments: 

“Collaboration across the industry is key to success and building solutions with open APIs will help to facilitate this, so we are increasingly able to join solutions together to not only make things better for property professionals and consumers, but make it harder for criminals to succeed.”

Want to find out more? Watch the full “Dirty Money in the Property Market” tm:tv session here.

Landmark will be launching two new coal reports on 30th October.

If you would like to order these new reports, please talk to your Client Relationship Manager about enabling them on tmconvey. 

More details below:

• Landmark Coal - price £35 +VAT per report

Landmark’s new regulated coal mining report is suitable for all residential property due diligence in the UK. It provides property lawyers and residential conveyancers with a detailed assessment regarding environmental or ground stability hazards resulting from past, current or future underground or opencast mining activities. It also includes information relating to subsidence claims, mine entry points, surface hazards and mining geology that may impact a property.

Click here to see a sample report

Click here to find out more

• Landmark CON29M - price £35 +VAT per report

Landmark’s new Law Society approved, and accredited official CON29M report provides cost-effective access to property-specific information relating to past, current and future underground and surface coal mining activities. It satisfies the requirements of the conveyancing handbook, with analysis clearly presented in a simple way and includes a professional opinion as standard by experienced Minerals Surveyors, with practical next steps.

Click here to see a sample report

Click here to find out more

For more information, talk to your Client Relationship Manager, or sign up to this free 30 minute webinar by Landmark: Thu, Nov 19, 2020 11:00 AM - 11:30 AM GMT

tmgroup, the leading provider of property searches and data, has today 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 information, you can register for a LIVE demo of Thirdfort at 1pm (GMT) on Tuesday 20th October 2020, or request more 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

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.

Proven to save at least an hour per matter, it’s quick and easy to install and, right now, you can enjoy the benefits without the standard set up fee of £2,795 and with no charge for user licences. This offer will only last until the end of October.

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

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

Planning data can cause delays and frustrations

When someone is planning on buying and then renovating their new home, planning data can throw a spanner in the works. Client queries can be time-consuming and costly.

It can be hard to ascertain what exactly your client wants when it comes to planning. They may be unsure themselves or think what they want won’t need permission. In addition, large volumes of data can be confusing for the home buyer and could mean vital information about their purchase is missed. 

How RiskView Residential is being enhanced to solve your planning data problems

RiskView Residential is an all-in-one environmental report that delivers easy-to-interpret data. It covers the key risk areas of contaminated land, flood, ground hazards and energy and infrastructure.

From January 3rd 2020, RiskView Residential will include planning applications and planning constraints data. 

By including planning in with RiskView, Landmark has focused on efficiency by removing easily solved client queries. 

Landmark has enhanced their simple to use, dynamic online viewer. Your client can use the new date filter to evaluate what’s important to them. You might be surprised that out of hundreds of planning applications, your client is only interested in a few. Now they can save time and quickly focus on what matters most.

Within the report, the number of pages in RiskView has been kept to a minimum – placing the large, home-buyer centric data in the online viewer. This ensures you don’t have to review or print dozens of pages unnecessarily.

Information in a click

The RiskView online viewer has also been enhanced to include (where possible) a clickable weblink for recent planning applications. 

Together, RiskView’s new features reduce the time it takes to evaluate planning data and the number of enquiries by removing the complexity and volume of the data presented.

Planning constraints data is also included, providing invaluable insight for your home-buyer client to determine if nearby constraints are likely to have an impact on future plans or marketability. Using the online viewer, home buyers can see if planning has been refused in the area. They can also see if any recent applications could (in their opinion) have an impact on the location.

By arming homeowners with this data, you are helping them choose their future home, with real, factual information.

Together, RiskView’s timesaving features add value to your service. You are also reducing the time spent dealing with planning related enquiries. 

Providing complete environmental due diligence with professional opinion in one report, RiskView is the market leading choice in client care.

RiskView with planning includes:

•Planning applications as standard

•Planning application summary on one page in the report

•Online viewer designed to reduce time spent on planning queries

•Unique dynamic date filter

•Planning application clickable links

•Planning constraints

To find out more about how RiskView Residential can save you time, please contact our Client Services Team on 0800 840 5571 or helpdesk@tmgroup.co.uk

Terrafirma’s updated Ground Report – Coming 1st October

Terrafirma’s updated Ground Report will be available to order on tmconvey from October 1st. Pricing remains unchanged.

This will be the first domestic search product to give an accurate prediction of properties which are likely to suffer clay-related shrink-swell movements or be affected by nearby tree roots – including an insight into the possible long-term effects of a changing climate on subsidence risk.

Sample report: Click here to see a sample report

About the report

The updated Ground Report includes a simple-to-understand guide to the potential amount of ground movement and the zone of influence of large trees, providing clear guidance on the scope of building surveys and subsidence insurance for affected properties.  

It includes:

·An additional clay subsidence summary on the front page, highlighting recommended actions for the purchaser.

·Terrafirma’s unique sinkhole alert now forms part of the front-page location map, highlighting recorded collapses near to the purchasers’ property.

·A revised Natural Ground Perils module which identifies the likely risks from slope movement as well as any mapped landslide areas.

· A new comprehensive Clay Subsidence module.

Pricing: Unchanged at £50+ VAT

If you have any questions, please get in touch with your Account Manager or our friendly Helpdesk team on 0800 840 5571 or helpdesk@tmgroup.co.uk

With the Land Registry now requiring registration applications to be made within 14 days of completion, tmgroup’s post-completion service streamlines the processing of Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) payments and AP1 forms to keep you in control.

Recent figures reveal the average time to complete registration across the industry is between 20 and 22 days. tmgroup analysed the average turnaround time for customers using their post-completion service and found it to be around 7 days.

Average times varied across the regions, with the South West fastest at 19.7 days, followed by East Anglia at 20.4 days. Slowest were the North East at 23.5 days, followed by the North West at 22.5 days.

Using tmgroup’s post-completion services could reduce the time taken to register property sales and transfers for many firms by around two-thirds. Benefits of using the fully integrated system include the following:

No need to enter data

The required information is automatically populated into the relevant forms from the tmgroup system. This means no time spent copying data across and working out which fields need to be completed. 

With completion of the SDLT form and AP1 being quick and simple, tmgroup users can make their applications as soon as the transfer document is received. This helps prevent any delay in the registration process and subsequent problems, for example where the buyer may wish to serve notice on a tenant or enforce a right contained in the title. 

Save time

As well as automatic completion of the relevant forms, the system only displays the fields that need to be filled in, which helps in trickier transactions, for example where part of the property is leasehold or only part is to be transferred. This means that users don’t have to browse through the entire document to find the right boxes to complete.

Completed forms and the current status of the case are visible to all team members, even across different offices, so it is easy to stay on top of cases, respond to buyer queries and manage work in the event of staff absences.

With the SDLT5 form sometimes returned to tmgroup users within seconds, there is the opportunity to cut application times to the absolute minimum. The faster a property transfer is registered, the lower the risk to the new owner from the registration gap. 

Reduced risk of error

Automatic population of data fields takes away the risk of human error in transcribing information. 

The system shows dates, times and submission status as well as any requisitions raised and records of conversations with the Land Registry. Timely prompts give notice of impending cancellation deadlines, meaning the risk of having to reapply is reduced. 

Missing information is highlighted at the time the forms are completed, minimising the number of requisitions and delays.

tmgroup is an approved software partner of both HM Revenue & Customs and HM Land Registry, meaning it is always up to date. It is secure and compliant, with data being encrypted so that anyone outside of your firm or the relevant government bodies is unable to view it.

Thoughts from one of our clients

Once our tmgroup users have tried the post-completion services, they really appreciate how easy it is to conclude a transaction. Victoria Follows, a partner in the property department of Hand Morgan & Owen explains. “We like the tmgroup platform and find it very easy to use. It is colourful and easy to find your way around. I also find it very useful to be able to see everyone’s cases, so if a colleague is off sick or on holiday, I can continue to progress their SDLT and AP1 submissions and meet our tight deadlines.

“The support from the tmgroup team is also fantastic and I can’t commend them highly enough. The Helpdesk is great and our Account Manager is superb. Everyone is just so willing to help.”

If you have any questions about how to fully utilise the post-completion service, please get in touch with your Account Manager or our friendly Helpdesk team on 0800 840 5571 or helpdesk@tmgroup.co.uk

tmgroup spoke to Paul Addison, Managing Director of DevAssist about Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessments (SHLAAs), and how understanding where there is development potential is just as critical as advising clients on current planning applications.

Nearly ⅓ of properties have a high risk of development in their proximity

I think the first thing you really need to know is that nearly ⅓ of the property purchases you are consulting on, have a high risk of development in their proximity. Furthermore, this risk is not always made clear, so if this risk is unknown to the client at the point of purchase, are you responsible? 

You could well be. In an economic climate where we are all increasingly risk averse, a risk of unforeseen development for your clients is a risk to you. Claims against Professional Indemnity are one of the most common contributory factors to solicitors going out of business. 

‘95% of homebuyers are concerned about unforeseen development in their neighbourhood.’ (Institute of Economic Affairs)

Purchasing a property, only to discover too late that there is a significant risk of development nearby, can and does result in clients taking legal action against their solicitors. Unfortunately, we’ve only seen the rate of these claims increasing. Clients are placing responsibility for interpreting planning data, with their conveyancer. The landmark case which really shifted the perspective across the whole industry was the Bird & Bird case in back in 2014. 

Law firm Bird & Bird had been instructed to purchase a high value property in North London. However, they had failed to disclose to the client that a planning report had contained information regarding a substantial development planned nearby. The client did not learn of this development until after the contract had been signed and deposit to the vendor paid. Upon discovery, they pulled out of the sale and took Bird & Bird to court to recoup costs invested so far. Ironically, the development was nearby but would not have adversely affected their property. In court, Bird & Bird took the stance that they were not under any duty to provide the report. Regrettably, having felt they had followed protocol correctly, the judge took the side of the client. Bird & Bird lost the case and were ordered to pay £1.8m in damages plus interest.

So how do you protect your firm and your reputation?

My advice to conveyancers is always the same. You need to be accessing all the data available to you and not relying on planning data reports alone. Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessments (SHLAAs) are a land viability exercise undertaken by local councils. This assessment of land availability identifies a future supply of land which is suitable, available and achievable for housing and economic development uses. This is an activity taking place in all of our local neighbourhoods with a real risk of impacting us all, but so little attention is paid to them. This is of course great news for developers, but worrying for homeowners. For those that aren’t yet in the know; 

The assessment will:

• identify sites and broad locations with potential for development;

• assess their development potential;

• assess their suitability for development and the likelihood of development coming forward (the availability and achievability).

How does this affect you and your clients? 

Sites that have undergone this assessment are significantly more likely to be approved for planning permission. However, here’s the real catch, SHLAA’s are not reported in standard searches or planning data. If your firm only commissions the basic searches, you will be missing vital information regarding potential development. 

In addition to this, the planning data you receive is usually provided as raw data. This makes the data complex to interpret and in my experience, doesn’t give you the full picture. 

Important development insight is contained in the planning data but often, any risks of development to the property you are interested in, are not easily identified. This is due to the geo-coding of the data, making the proximity of planned developments to the property of interest, unclear.  It is often the case that planning data will identify a development proposal in the neighbourhood, but mislead you about how near that development is to a subject property. On a planned development of 2,000 homes, the geo-coding could be set to any point on that large acreage – likely some distance from the property you’re looking at. When in reality, the development is going to extend as far as the bottom of your client’s garden. 

The only way to extract the real risk of, or proposed development and its proximity to a property, is to assess the planning data alongside the SHLAA research. 

How likely is it that your clients will be affected by unforeseen development? 

Very. Particularly in the ever-shifting and evolving urban environments. Our research indicates that purchasers and investors have a 20% chance of experiencing major or significant change in London. In Manchester, this rises to 42%. We can’t always avoid development or the risk of it, but we can be better informed. 

Rooms without a view

Just last month in Folkestone, we were commissioned to deliver a report on a subject property which enjoyed uninterrupted sea views. The apartment was to be a retirement home and the views were the primary attraction for the buyer. We identified two high risk development proposals, just metres from the property. One of these proposals had already received planning permission. The approved development was for a large modern apartment block that would obstruct the sea views entirely from the property - see image below. 

These developments were not picked up in the standard conveyancing searches that had already been undertaken.

It’s not just the sea views under threat of course. We recently delivered a report for clients in Warrington. The property was a country cottage that boasted enviable rural views and a quiet location.

Our report ascertained that there was a real risk of development in the immediate vicinity of the property. Our report identified that the area as a whole has been considered for Garden City Suburb development and that one site, bordering the subject property had already been promoted through the SHLAA process. This insight wouldn’t have been exposed in standard conveyancing searches and was critical to the client’s decision on whether to proceed with the purchase.

Be informed 

I feel passionately that you can only take responsibility for the information, if you have the full picture. If your searches do not contain SHLAA data, you are missing a vital piece of the puzzle. This omission of data has been a source of huge frustration for me over the years and hence the establishment of my own company in this field. 

Discovering unforeseen development is not a rarity either. You and your clients will be impacted by development, as we are a small island in dire need of more housing! However, we can be more informed about our changing neighbourhoods, and in turn make more informed decisions when it comes to buying properties.

For more information about DevAssist, visit www.devassist.co.uk or get in touch with your tmgroup Account Manager. 

Lawyer Checker have advised that the price of their Account and Entity Screen (AES) will be increasing by £2 + VAT, from 1st September 2019. 

AES provides comprehensive, real-time reporting on the legitimacy of law firms and their bank accounts. The price of the report will increase from £10 to £12 on tmconvey for any orders placed on or after 1st September. 

If you have any questions, please get in touch with your Account Manager or our friendly Helpdesk team on 0800 840 5571 or helpdesk@tmgroup.co.uk

BT Property Search will soon be available to order on tmconvey.

Priced at £59 +VAT, the report will allow conveyancers to check if proposals, including demolition or construction, might affect BT plc (BT) assets in the UK. BT assets consist of various types of property, including Telephone Exchanges and cable connections to and from them, above and below ground. 

Of particular benefit to residential and commercial developers, BT Property Search will help conveyancers to support their clients in mitigating the risk of damage to BT assets and their own, as well as limit unnecessary costs and delay.

If you have any questions, please get in touch with your Account Manager or our friendly Helpdesk team on 0800 840 5571 or helpdesk@tmgroup.co.uk