The future for the conveyancing market in England and Wales lies in partnerships between solicitors and estate agents to provide a one-stop shop for sellers, the new president of the E-Homebuying Forum has told the Gazette.

Sir Bryan Carsberg, who is also a former director of the Office of Fair Trading, said he would like to see solicitors and estate working together, as they do in Scotland.

Carsberg said he would also like to see estate agents regulated, so that customers know what standards to expect and have some form of redress when things go wrong.

Carsberg said: ‘The Scottish system, where solicitors employ estate agents, works well.’ He added that customers would benefit from a one-stop shop if solicitors in England and Wales went into partnership with estate agents and others involved in the conveyancing process.

‘When you see the links that some solicitors and estate agents already have, multi-disciplinary partnerships are surely the next step? They are coming, but they are taking their time,’ he said.

Carsberg said: ‘With the current arrangements, there’s a feeling that estate agents and solicitors are wary of each other. If they were working in the same firm they would be pulling in the same direction.’

He predicted solicitors would play a ‘big part in a new vigorous and competitive market’, and suggested preliminary and binding contracts between vendors and purchasers could be entered into at the offer and acceptance stage, which lawyers would be at the centre of.

Law Society property spokesman Paul Marsh said: ‘I’d like to see solicitors taking advantage of all the opportunities open over the next two or three years to be able to sell property and give clients a one-stop shop.’

But he said the only way that will be achieved is for there to be the same degree of regulation for estate agents as there is for solicitors, which ‘means estate agents have to be regulated’.

Richard Barnett, chairman of the Law Society’s conveyancing and land law committee and senior partner at volume conveyancing firm Barnetts, said: ‘A one-stop shop is a great idea. That’s what we already do, working in partnership with estate agents. The Legal Services Act will make the arrangements much easier.’

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