What is Online Conveyancing?

 A quick search on the internet for ‘Online Conveyancing’ produces thousands of results and the topic also appears in lots of discussion forums.  But what is Online Conveyancing? 

 To begin, let’s take a look at the conveyancing process to explain.  The conveyancer or solicitor acting for the buyer of a property essentially leads the conveyancing process.  They will gather information from several sources including; the conveyancer acting for the seller, the mortgage lender, the local authority, other information providers and the buyer themselves.

 Their job is to review all of the information they obtain and satisfy themselves that the buyer’s, and their lender’s interests are safeguarded.  In contrast, the conveyancer or solicitor acting for the seller is often a key source of information and their role includes providing the buyer’s conveyancer with the responses to the information they request so that the buyer can make a fully informed decision as to whether to proceed with the purchase.  If the property is leasehold, the sellers’ conveyancer has to request information from the landlord and/or management company and provide this to the buyer’s conveyancer.

As you can see, there’s a lot of information and correspondence flowing between all parties in the transaction.  Unfortunately as the conveyancing legal process stands at the moment, for some documents there’s still a requirement for those parties involved to either provide or secure in their possession signed original documentation (e.g. a Contract of Sale which is literally ‘exchanged’ between the buyer’s and seller’s conveyancer on Exchange of Contracts). 

As a result, perhaps the reality of online conveyancing differs from expectations, particularly when you compare it with other legal and financial services where you can often interact 100% online without the need to sign and return original documentation. 

So is online conveyancing a myth? No, not completely.  Whilst there’s still a requirement for some original documentation to be signed, there is no reason why a conveyancer or solicitor can’t make the best use of technology to assist with the process overall. 

You may be surprised to learn that there are still a number of conveyancers and solicitors out there that don’t use email!  Yes, even in this day and age I’m afraid.  The sector could be described as ‘The Haves and The Have Nots’ when it comes to technology.  Some solicitors and conveyancers simply haven’t invested in their IT to be able to offer their clients the best service. 

At Kirkstall Property Lawyers, our approach is different.  Where our Clients want us to, we will use technology every step of the way to deliver a first-class service, at maximum speed. We estimate that in a standard conveyancing transaction, in total a Client and their conveyancer spend up to two weeks waiting for documents to arrive in the post from each other.  That’s why we upload the majority of correspondence to our Clients’ very own Case Tracker, a secure website where Clients can read, download and upload documents instantly.  Clients are alerted the moment new correspondence is available for them meaning they can literally be reviewing information within seconds of it being sent. 

We don’t just stop there either; we also use Case Tracker to send and receive instant messages and use a mixture of SMS text messages and traditional email too.  At a glance, Clients can view a ‘dashboard’ of their transaction 24/7 – Case Tracker even gives a weather forecast for moving day! 

We hope you’ve found this helpful, if you need any more information please take a look at the other guides on our website or alternatively please call us, we’d be happy to help you.

Don’t just take our word for it – view some of the testimonials on this site from satisfied Kirkstall Property Lawyers Clients.  This is the way conveyancing should be.