Law Society consults on first Conveyancing Protocol overhaul in seven years

The Law Society has opened a consultation on an updated National Conveyancing Protocol — the first substantive overhaul in roughly seven years. For firms accredited under the Conveyancing Quality Scheme, this is not an academic exercise. CQS membership obliges firms to follow the Protocol, so whatever emerges from the consultation will shape file handling, due diligence and search practice on every residential transaction you run.

Why a refresh was overdue

The current Protocol predates a long list of changes that conveyancers now deal with daily: the material information rules for property listings, the push towards upfront information, digital identity verification standards, building safety obligations following the Building Safety Act, and a broader regulatory focus on climate and flood risk. Practice has moved on; the written standard has not moved with it.

The result, for many firms, has been a gap between what the Protocol says and what a competent file actually looks like in 2024 and beyond. Updating it brings the baseline back into line with how good firms already work — and raises the floor for everyone else.

What it means for CQS firms

Because the Protocol is a condition of CQS accreditation, changes flow straight into your procedures manual, your file reviews and your audit evidence. In practice, expect three areas of pressure.

Earlier information gathering. The direction of travel across the sector is towards getting more into the hands of buyers and their lawyers sooner — property information, title, and key searches ordered at or near the point of instruction rather than after enquiries have stalled. Any Protocol change in this direction shortens the window in which seller-side firms can gather documents, which means client onboarding and pack preparation need to be tighter than they have been.

Due diligence scope. Risks that were once treated as optional extras are now mainstream. Flood, ground stability, climate, and building safety are the obvious candidates for firmer wording. Where a Protocol step moves from implicit to explicit, the evidential expectation moves with it — a file note saying the client declined a search will matter more than ever.

Search ordering and record-keeping. If the updated Protocol sharpens expectations on what is ordered, when, and how results are reported to the client, firms will need their search workflow to be consistent across fee earners rather than left to individual habit. Audit trails become the evidence of compliance.

Responding to the consultation

Consultations on practice standards are frequently answered by representative bodies and larger firms, with smaller practices assuming their view will not shift anything. That is a mistake. The practical friction in a Protocol — the step that works perfectly in a ten-partner firm and not at all in a two-partner one — is exactly what consultation responses are meant to surface.

If you are planning to respond, the useful material tends to be specific. Which steps add time without reducing risk? Where does the Protocol assume a seller client will produce documents they realistically cannot? Which parts of the current version are routinely ignored, and why? Concrete examples carry more weight than general agreement.

Preparing now, not later

There is no need to wait for the final text to start getting ready. A few sensible steps:

Map your current process against the existing Protocol. Many firms find drift they did not know about — steps that have quietly been dropped or reordered over the years.

Check where your due diligence is discretionary. Identify the searches and checks that are currently ordered at fee earner discretion. Those are the ones most likely to be affected if standards tighten, and the ones where inconsistency is hardest to defend.

Look at your audit trail. If you had to evidence, for a CQS audit, exactly what was ordered on a file and when the results were reported, how long would it take? If the answer involves trawling email, that is a problem worth solving before the new Protocol lands.

None of this is wasted effort regardless of the final wording. Consistent search ordering and clean records are what make Protocol compliance straightforward rather than a scramble.

If your search ordering and audit trail could be tighter, see how Searchpoint handles it.