International

Paul Omar of Gray's Inn writes extensively about the challenges of modernisation.

Paul Omar of Gray's Inn writes extensively about the challenges of modernisation.

The Lands department in the Ministry of Lands in Kenya is a big wheel in the country's economic activity.

A workshop is to be held in Kaula Lumpur on "Reducing the Risks of Land Fraud". K.S. Gunasekera highlights the conveyancing aspect.

The Botswana Law Society is battling with the thorny issue of the allocation of conveyancing work.

London - intermediaries have failed to recommend conveyancing services to their clients.

More than a quarter of negligence claims against solicitors relate to conveyancing.

UK - an adviser is thoroughly dissatisfied with the quality of "free" conveyancing services.

Countrywide Property Lawyers is Europe's largest conveyancing operation with over 10 000 active cases.

A "law-talking guy" blogs about the good, the bad and the dangerously incompetent.

The Bahamas is to get a computerised Parcel Information Management System (PIMS).

The bill intends to clarify, simplify, streamline and make property transactions more transparent.

The governing body of Scotland's 8000 solicitors is to scrap its tariff of recommended charges.

The Barnes have had a dispute over the boundaries of a house they have lived in since 1972.

The Law Society of Scotland will be holding an annual conference. This year, the conference looks at "Why property matters to Scottish legal profession".

The Law Society Council has adopted a new e-strategy amid warnings that solicitors' firms that fail to adapt to developments in IT could find themselves out of business within two or three years.

Lawyer-conveyancers are attempting to restore their conveyancing monopoly in Victoria Australia.

A couple whose dream house had been the scene of a gruesome murder have failed in a bid to win compensation.

The House of Lords has resolved an acrimonious 12-year court battle in the 'race to register' property deeds.

The Law Gazette reports that one of the two original solicitors property centres from the 1980s has closed.

Late last year the Law Society of England and Wales voted in favour of allowing solicitors to pay introduction and referral fees.

Scams abound; here is one from Australia.

Says lawyer Lorne Cousin, "It is so exciting when you're waiting to go on and you can hear 20,000 people screaming. It certainly beats rural conveyancing."

The Real Estate Institute of New Zealand (REINZ) has welcomed Justice & Electoral Select Committee's report on the Lawyers and Conveyancers Bill.

Are the British really obsessed with property? Maybe so, but they seem to be a little bit vague about the finer details of house-buying...

Someone discovers he has the title deeds for the land around his parents' semi-detached bungalow, but none for the property.

In July, at the Law Society of England and Wales' annual general meeting, it was decided to hold a postal ballot of the whole profession on the issue of referral fees.

Harry Kanter, who has been in private practice for more than 50 years, doubts that payments to third parties will improve service to clients.

Australian mortgage brokers have been ordered to reveal perks - but only if asked to do so.

... Just watch me as I remove fixtures and fittings after I have sold my house.

A short, useful discussion of contaminated land - given the growing awareness of environmental liability.

In Shattuck v. Klotzbach, Civ. Act. No. 01-1109A (Superior Ct., Mass., December 11, 2001), the court had to decide whether the exchange of e-mails between parties was sufficient to give rise to a contract of sale.

Last year, Legalmart launched an innovative online conveyancing service in New South Wales - the largest property market in Australia.

Irish homebuyers and sellers are expected to save millions of euro in legal fees as a result of a price war in the legal profession.

The launch of The Conveyancing Room in England at the end of March, means that all parties to a transaction (solicitors, clients, estate agents, mortgagees and other parties) can communicate in a secure, online environment.

In a recent article entitled Home (a)loan in the April 2003 edition of De Rebus, Roger Green wrote about the ethical dilemma facing attorneys paying financial inducements to estate agents and mortgage originators. With this in mind, it may be a good idea for lawyers to consider selling property.

The English Council for Licensed Conveyancers (CLC) is the regulatory body for licensed conveyancers in England. It was established in terms of the Administration of Justice Act 1985.

Speakers at the April meeting of the English Society for Computers and Law, requested that the Government's roll-out of electronic conveyancing be accelerated. They said that the sooner it is totally operational, the greater the benefits will be for both law firms and clients.

In Going it alone in the Law Gazette, Jeremy Fleming looks at the increasing pressures sole practitioners in England face following plans by the Law Society to relax practice rule 4, thereby allowing employed solicitors to offer their services to the public.

Since conveyancing generates much work it is not surprising that this area of the law bears the brunt of negligence claims against solicitors. As Chris Baker explains in an article in the Law Gazette entitled Inside the house of horrors, using some simple risk management procedures can reduce these claims.

Following the recommendations by a Conveyancing Fees Review Committee, conveyancing fees in Singapore became totally liberalised on the 1st February this year, allowing lawyers to freely negotiate them. Yet...

Neighbours' feuds should provide enough material to keep writers of farce busy. At the moment some 10 000 hedge feuds are being waged in England; yes, 10 000.

Law firms can make huge savings by reorganising their secretarial structures, promoting team leaders and using digital dictation, according to the LawGazette.

According to the LawGazette a sharp rise in commercial conveyancing negligence claims over the past year has seen them catch up with domestic conveyancing as the principal cause of indemnity notifications.

A letter in the LawGazette ends off with the words: "It is about time everyone remembered that conveyancing requires skill and detailed legal knowledge, and stopped trying to give the impression that it is no more complicated than selling a packet of crisps."