Conveyancing Data Services

The pros and cons of wind farming have been debated for some time now, with the cost and disruption to the local environment being the main concern, mainly for those who live near the proposed sites!

Shale Gas has now also been the subject of similar debates, mainly due to the questionable methods used in extracting the gas from the rocks in which it is contained. Speculation in the media has risen around these methods due to energy companies having been granted licences by the UK government to explore areas of England and Wales in greater detail.

With growing public concern over these extraction methods we are pleased to see that both environmental search companies,GroundSure and Landmark, are planning to offer a solution to this newly evolving risk with GroundSure being the first to launch their product this week.

The GroundSure Energy Search is very reasonably priced at £24.00 inc VAT for a residential report and £60.00 inc VAT for its' commercial counterpart. However, we have agreed a 50% reduction in these prices for clients of CDS for the remainder of the month.  If you are interested in seeing a sample of this Energy Report then please click here to request one.

The report covers three main areas;

-Hydraulic Fracturing Sites (Fracking) -Oil and Gas Exploration (potential new sites as well as existing or former sites) -Power Stations

Of course I am aware that any normal Conveyancing transaction already has 1001 things that need to be searched, checked and reported upon, but if you happen to be in an affected/risk area the news that this information is easily available will be a relief.

Conveyancing Data Services Ltd is very pleased, not to mention excited, to announce the expansion of its sales team, with the addition of a National Sales Manager.

We have been painstakingly searching for the right candidate for some time now and I am extremely pleased to announce that Richard Pickles has joined our team from today! Richard brings with him, not only the product knowledge needed to operate in our industry sector, but also an enormous depth of experience.

This is exactly what CDS were looking for in order to continue with our huge expansion plans.

Richard was previously the Sales Director at MDA/Transaction Online which is where our paths first crossed, he managed the development and launch of TransAction Online and also MDA Advantage both of which became leading providers of property search information to property professionals'.

In Richards own words: 'I am delighted to be joining CDS at this stage in their development. Not only does the company have great ambition, it also places the customer at the core of their philosophy. I look forward to helping the team achieve their goals and providing our customers with an unrivalled service'.

The recent case of Nationwide Building Society v Davisons (2012) shows that even legitimate companies can have fraudsters copy their brand to commit crime. It is increasingly easy for criminals to hide behind a legitimate front or pretend to be someone they are not to steal your clients' money.

So with this in mind Lawyer Checker has been designed to help you reduce uncertainty in identifying the legitimacy of the vendor conveyancer. This new search will obtain information on the vendor conveyancer in relation to their client account details against an historic data base and in particular the frequency that these details have been used. This will enable you to assess the risk associated with the transaction and also highlight any possible human error in the reproduction of these details.

For full details of the two products available from Lawyer Checker please click here to download our brochure and to download an order form for these products please click here.

Other Compliance Tools

Whilst we are talking about compliance it is worth reminding you all that our online ordering portal has a Recommended Search Tool built in to the ordering process. Using the inputted property postcode our system will search a number of pertinent, not to mention important, datasets and will alert you to any searches recommended within the area you are purchasing. For example Mining (Tin, Clay, Coal, Brine, Limestone, Bath Stone), Flooding and HS2.  HS2 or is it 3?

Details have been released this week of the two extensions to the already planned HS2 link between London and Birmingham, these being links between Birmingham and Manchester/Leeds. We have produced two simple documents which might be useful to keep on your desktops for use, at a glance, should the need arise. Local Authorities Affected by Phase 1 Local Authorities Affected by Phase 2 

"HS2 rail route: Turweston house valued at £0

A Buckinghamshire pensioner who lives close to the proposed HS2 high speed rail route has been told her house is worthless - months after it was valued at £275,000."

I thought I would keep everyone up to date with the real effects of this development, this news story appeared on the BBC news website last week and clearly highlights the need for the new HS2 search when purchasing a property anywhere near the planned new rail links.

For the full story click here: http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-21248717

Whilst initially the new line will only stretch between London and Birmingham, there are also plans to extend the connection with two more lines running from Birmingham to Manchester and Leeds separately. Although work is not due to start until 2017, with a planned completion date in 2026, property owners are already finding themselves stuck with their homes, which one lender has now deemed un-mortgagable until the true impact of the rail link can be measured.

The government has made compensation available to those effected by the works, but in the case in question the amount made available, reportedly, falls someway short of the property's value before the route was revealed. The government currently offers automatic entitlement to compensation for all properties that fall within 120 metres of the line, however the property subject to the above news report is some 460metres from the route. This therefore suggests that blighting effects of the development are far greater than the government anticipated.

Those of you who read this blog or our newsletters regularly will know that I am not one to pay too much attention to predictions BUT I do make exceptions when they appear to compare apples with apples. In this case Rightmove have been comparing January 2012 instructions with January 2013, with some exciting findings including an increase in listings of 22%! They do keep us grounded with their reminder that overall we still have a way to go with the housing market, by comparison with their figures in January 2008, but green shoots of recovery will be a welcome sign for everyone concerned I am sure.

If you are interested in reading the full article please click here:http://www.estateagenttoday.co.uk/news_features/Green-shoots-may-be-emerging-says-Rightmove

For existing customers of ours I would remind you of the impending increase in certain products and pack prices, due entirely to the extra rules relating to the use of Land Registry plans. Full details of this can be found in last week's newsletter. If your current search supplier uses your Land Registry plans within your search reports this is a 'must read' to ensure compliance with these revised requirements.

Conveyancing Data Services is proud to announce a partnership with Telefonica O2. The affiliation is the first in a series of key partnerships being launched over the coming months.

At Conveyancing Data Services we are all about service, good communication, flexibility and great customer experience and our decision to become a Regional Technology Partner of O2 was based on the strong values that both company's present.

Communication with our clients is fundamental to ensuring that we provide the service they require and our methods are continually evaluated. The partnership with O2 will further enhance the tools that we use both internally and externally giving us leading edge technology.

Our partnership will also allow our clients to benefit from the vast experience and knowledge that O2 brings to the market. Communication packages are specified and designed in such a way to fit your business requirements and it is their goal to ensure that they understand and make sense of your communications and IT.

O2's vision for 'joined up business' helps cut out complexity, increase productivity and save your business money by bringing together all your communications.

Changes in your business are always difficult particularly when time is limited; however, when it comes to communications consider your current setup and the potential of enhancing your working methods.

As we pledged in our last newsletter Conveyancing Data Services will be donating 25 pence for each and every order received in the month of December to our chosen charity for 2013, Daisy's Dream.

Daisy's Dream is a charity local to our head office in Berkshire, full details that can be found on their website daisysdream.org.uk, they are a charity which supports children and their families affected by both life threatening illness and bereavement throughout Berkshire and the surrounding areas, they need to raise in excess of £300,000 each and every year to maintain and develop their service.

PLEASE PLEASE keep the orders coming......if you are yet to open an account with us simply reply to this email and one can be set up for you immediately, so you can join in the fund raising!

We also have 6 members of staff already committed to running in Reading Half Marathon next year for this worthy cause, with a number of other fund raising activities on the drawing board.

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FREE AML SEARCHES - For those of you who buy, or would like to try, our AML search product it might be worth noting that next Tuesday (11th December 2012) we will be offering each and every one of you a FREE AML search on one of your clients, it's not just charities we like to give to!

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Olympic Update – for those of you that have been following the progress being made by Will Satch (Olympic Bronze Medallist) you will be relieved to know that having recently undergone surgery on a hip injury, he is recovering well and hopes to be back in training in the new year, if you would like more information please click HERE or if you would like me to pass on any kind wishes please forward them to me.

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Throughout 2012 Conveyancing Data Services has raised and donated well in excess of £3000 which was divided amongst a number of different charities around the country, however for 2013 we have decided to focus our efforts and support just one.

After lengthy discussions the decision was made to support a charity local to our head office in Berkshire, called Daisy's Dream, full details can be found on their website daisysdream.org.uk

So to start our fundraising early for 2013 Conveyancing Data Services has pledged to set aside 25p for each and every order we receive in the month of December and donate this to Daisy's Dream in January....so just by placing an order with us you are helping.

Daisy's Dream is a charity which supports children and their families affected by both life threatening illness and bereavement throughout Berkshire and the surrounding areas, they need to raise in excess of £300,000 every year to maintain and develop their service.

Whilst we all get prepared for the forthcoming festivities and the excitement that Christmas brings it is also a time when many children and families are dealing with bereavements, and so although it is not quite 2013 we thought we would make this announcement early so that if anyone wanted to make a donation direct to Daisy's Dream they could (details available on their website).

We will be keeping in contact next year with details of our fund raising events and activities and we hope that at some point you might be able to help us raise some money for this worthy cause.

I speak to enough people in the legal profession to know that there has never been more focus on compliance and making sure that your files are squeaky clean and can fly through any inspection you might be unlucky enough to be subject to.

In turn Conveyancing Data Services has had to be put through a number of checks and subjected to strict due diligence investigations to ensure whoever our customers are and whatever their requirements, each and every product and service we supply meets a set of exacting standards.

We are very proud to announce that a number of industry compliance bodies such as PCCB/COPSO and some of the more high profile lenders such as HSBC have given Conveyancing Data Services and the searches it produces the Green Light!! 

In addition to our own industry compliance bodies, our searches comply with the CML handbook with regard to local search supply and are used by many practices registered with the Conveyancing Quality Scheme (CQS). So whatever your preference from personal to official searches or GroundSure to Landmark you can rest assured that compliance is at the forefront of everything we do.

How are all three of these things linked, do I hear you all ask?

Well the answer is simply through Conveyancing Data Services Ltd.....you could be forgiven for thinking the first two are obviously linked BUT it is not 'Rain Clouds' that we are referring to rather 'IT Clouds', the sort that securely holds and retains data. Our online ordering portal stores a copy of each and every search/indemnity policy that our customers order for both compliance and future reference, thus allowing you to sleep better at night knowing that whatever happens at your end we will always hold a copy.

Storing this data in the most secure and safe manner is something that is at the forefront of our minds, whilst keeping the records accessible by our clients at the same time. We are proud to say that we have now added to our storage and security by looking to the Cloud for that additional peace of mind. If you would like to know more about this please let me know.

Moving on to the increasingly higher profile of flood risk and whether this should now be (if it isn't already!) a consideration when buying a search package on every purchase. HOWEVER what should now be taken into consideration is that the floods that have featured in the media recently have not been caused by rivers or tidal sources, which are the most obvious causes. These devastating events have been caused by Surface Water Flooding, where local infrastructure is now, for a number of reasons, unable to cope with the levels of rainfall seen recently.

The point in question now should be, is knowledge of the whereabouts of local flood plains and tidal defence systems enough when deciding whether a flood search is necessary?

Samples of the Flood Searches available to you can be emailed over upon request.

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