With the Bank of England announcing that the base rate will be cut down to 2%, conveyancing lawyers are hoping that this could spell the start of a recovery in their sector. In recent months the conveyancing sector has been hit hard by the drastic decrease in house sales and mortgage lending. With many young people now opting to rent instead of buy, many firms have had to lay off or cut back hours for staff.

Tightening belts in the industry
There was yet another sign of this worrying trend this week, with the announcement by the Colchester based law firm Fisher Jones Greenwood announced that it would be cutting back hours for each of its seven conveyancing staff, who have been the hardest hit of any sector in their business in the current slowdown.

David Jones, who is a partner in the Essex based legal team said that "We have cut hours for conveyancers because there is not enough of that sort of work." He indicated that this would be a pro-rata cut.

This trend is being played out across the rest of the EU as well with the number of new vacancies for conveyancing solicitors in Ireland dropping dramatically in the second half of this year. According to one expert in the field, what was once a booming market with dozens of jobs advertised each week has dropped to a trickle.

"When the market was booming, firms hired a huge amount of newly qualified solicitors, but that market is now non-existent. There have been redundancies within legal firms. I would think there will be more. Law firms have to be realistic if they haven't got work for their staff." Said John Macklin from Bridgewater Recruiting.

Macklin added that the number of jobs that his company were offering in the field had dropped massively in June this year. "It's currently zero. I can't remember the last time there was a conveyancing job on the market," he added.

Home Reports
In Scotland, Conveyancers have hit out at the new Home Reports that have been brought in by the Scottish Parliament, which they say will hurt the industry further.

The Home Reports, much like HIPs in England and Wales, aim to provide more information about the property for sale. But, like HIPs, questions have been raised about the cost to potential sellers and whether this will discourage people from putting their home on the market.

Fergus Macpherson from A1 Financial made clear that he thought the new reports would be more trouble than they were worth.

"At the moment you can put your house on the market for about £250. Now you can't dip your toe in it without the outlay of at the very least £500 for the home report, probably more. Plus the £250 on top. Why would anyone dip their toe in any more?" he said.

With all this turmoil then, conveyancers are looking towards the government to help the housing market and re-ignite what is an essential part of the UK economy.