When You Move

Will this end the need to chase conveyancing solicitors on the phone?

Estate agents have for decades battled the UK’s frustratingly opaque and slow conveyancing system. But according to a proptech platform due to launch later this month, the days of the ‘black hole’ that property transactions disappear into after an offer has been accepted is about to have a very bright light shone into it. Simon Bath, who two years ago set up a conveyancing legal firm but soon realised the system was “broken”, is about to launch When You Move, an integrated online platform that enables solicitors to keep their introducing agent and broker clients up-to-date with the latest progress on each transaction going through the system. “I’m staggered by the process works at the moment – 80% of a sales progressors’ job is to make phone calls to a solicitor who often doesn’t pick up or returns calls enough,” he says. “The level of frustration grows as all the parties try to find out what’s going on. “But we’ve seen that, by using the technology in our own conveyancing business, if you can automate that comms piece then that problem disappears. And the phone stops ringing off the hook all the time.” “We realised the tech had to be…