Conveyancers have been warned not to forget customer service once they have received payment.

The trade body for conveyancers, CLC (Council for Licensed Conveyancers), has sent a clear message to property solicitors that they need to do the work they are paid for.

Don’t slack with post-completion work just because you’ve been paid.”

And if they fail to do this, they risk being de-registered by CLC, which introduced a new code of conduct at the beginning of the year.

“Don’t slack with post-completion work just because you’ve been paid,” CLC warns conveyancers.

CLC points to registration of new ownership with Land Registry and sometimes Companies House, as a post-completion task that must be followed through, but is sometimes forgotten by conveyancers.

After-thought

Some conveyancers consider Land Registry registration as an “after-thought”, CLC says.

“On HMLR applications, the regulator stresses that taking the fee and not completing the work is a breach of its Accounts Code and demonstrates a lack of integrity,” CLC says.

And property owners may only find out that the registration hasn’t been done when they come to sell years later, CLC warns.

Breaches

“CLC is increasing its activity on this issue and tracking practices where we are seeing repeated or systemic breaches,” it says.

One law firm was removed from a leading lender’s panel last year because it failed to improve its performance, despite being given several opportunities, CLC says.

Conditional selling

CLC also recently launched a review into referral fees paid to estate agents by legal firms, following a BBC Panorama investigation into conditional selling.

CLC has published its ‘Risk Agenda’ which, it says “underlines throughout the fundamental importance of ethics and ethical conduct in light of profession-wide concerns”.

Last year’s Risk Agenda highlighted the number of complaints the CLC received about breaches in relation to HMLR applications.

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