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First and foremost, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you who took the time to answer the Conveyancing Association (CA)'s recent survey.

As you will know, we are determined to do all we can to improve interaction between conveyancers and estate agents, with the ultimate aim of making the house buying and/or selling experience a better one for all involved - not least our clients. Your help on our (brave) mission to do this was greatly appreciated.

While the results of the survey are pending publication, I am happy to say that, in the meantime, we have another update on the progress of the campaign for you.

Indeed next week the CA will be holding its first All-Members Meeting of 2015 in London - and can you guess what the issue du jour is going to be

You probably can

We are dedicating the event to gaining an even deeper understanding of the issues conveyancers and estate agents are currently coming up against when dealing with a property purchase and / or sale - and therefore what exactly is causing the (very much unwelcome) delays to transactions at present.

But - and perhaps more pertinently - what we will also be looking for are potential solutions to these challenging issues causing the hold ups. Naturally, we're bringing together the very best heads the industry has to offer to help us to find them. Suffice to say this is an exciting and promising development in the progress of our campaign.

All members of the CA have been invited to attend and encouraged to participate with a view to challenging the panel on as many fronts as possible in order to ensure real and workable solutions are reached.

We hope that by the end of the session we will have addressed the principal hurdles estate agents and conveyancers alike are finding themselves coming up against time and time again during a transaction - and at least had a good go at coming up with some potential ways of overcoming these.

Following the session, we will be looking to analyse the discussion and draw from it some constructive and practical conclusions which we look forward to sharing with you in due course.

Improving customer services is absolutely central to what we at the CA do. Indeed it is one of the main reasons - if not the main reason - we exist at all. The further we explore this campaign the more determined I have grown, personally, to deliver an effective result.

While this will of course achieve the principle aim of helping transactions run more smoothly for estate agents and conveyancers - helping both parties to deliver a better service to their clients - it will also set an important precedent. The property sector can at times be somewhat archaic (it has, for example, taken us conveyancers rather a long time to make the big move online) - and often the status quo is left unchallenged as a result.

I hope that the CA's campaign will encourage a change to this attitude - prompting those within the industry to think about and come up with solutions that will make our sector more efficient, smooth-running and pleasant to work both in and with now and in the future.

*Eddie Goldsmith is Chairman of the Conveyancing Association and Senior Partner at Goldsmith Williams

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