New law frees estate agents to offer conveyancing. 10/10/11

Heywoods has given a cautious thumbs up to a new law that will affect estate agents, in which non-lawyers will be permitted to own and run their own legal business for the first time.

The change in legislation, which has just come into force in England and Wales, has been dubbed Tesco Law by critics who fear that it will only be a matter of time before the supermarket giants muscle in on yet another consumer service sector.

But as far as homebuyers and sellers are concerned, we believe that the new law could well turn out to be a good thing.

Deregulation will inevitably increase competition, encourage existing law firms to up their game and provide better value for money to the customer.

It will also open up the opportunity for estate agents to broaden their services into conveyancing – something we believe would be of particular advantage to the consumer.

The obvious benefit will be the savings people will be able to make by keeping everything under one roof. But more importantly, it will help to simplify the process of buying and selling a property and take some of the stress out of moving home.

And finally, it will make it easier for estate agents to monitor the progress of a house sale, which should lead to shorter times between offer and completion.