Internet Newsletter for Lawyers |
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Law firms now look at the intimidating £millions being spent by estate agents and giant
corporates squaring up to fight a war of attrition in the new field of HIPs. They may think the
future looks ever more bleak - with the prospect of the unfettered client becoming an
endangered species.
And yet for some, perhaps the picture isn’t that stark.
This isn’t a macro argument that suggests the specialist Pack providers are going to have to
retire with a bloody nose – far from it. The problems of scaleable delivery persist for the industry
and leave the field wide open for new entrants - but it is a fillip for law firms using those models
that either value the independent role of the conveyancer or by way of extension, allow a
conveyancer to manage the whole HIP production process.
This view is based on the central tenet that a HIP is nothing more than a gateway to a house
move and a house move is going to continue to rely on the harmonious interaction of estate
agent and conveyancer. If a HIP proposition allows a conveyancer to step up and provide a HIP
on at least a comparable basis to that of its competitors, then the real strengths of a good
conveyancer’s proposition are left with a clear run to the finishing line – and the agent’s bottom
line.
It also leaves conveyancers in an excellent position to build the links through from HIP to
conveyance, possibly bridging with some form of supplemental detail around the Title and an
interpretation of the search results.
The first is effectively an outsourced managed service which allows the user to specify their own
component suppliers. A conveyancer can either take the solution to the agent with themselves
as the Legal Component Supplier or an agent using the service can specify whom the Legal
Component Supplier should be. In both cases the actual instruction, assembly and publishing
of the HIP is managed externally.
The second is a purer technology solution which effectively provides the technological
infrastructure that allows the user complete control over the HIP production. This wholly owned
solution places the conveyancer ‘on the bridge’ as it were, managing all aspects of the
commercial relationships (including fees, SLAs, panel composition and allocation etc) using a
supplied technology platform. This probably needs a larger management overhead but gives
rise to a more flexible, better differentiated solution.
Both these models are almost certain to have funding and fulfilment services available with well
defined online interfaces. They will be hosted solutions with all issues around security,
scaleability and resilience dealt with as part of a transaction fee.
A third option would be to work with agents using one of the propositions that creates a HIP
without any involvement of external conveyancers but doesn’t then seek to control the
subsequent conveyancing referral – but this doesn’t change the current market dynamics.
The choice of model really comes down to a firm’s risk/ reward appetite which is probably a
function of a firm’s market position and its relationships with potential introducers. Paradoxically,
it may be that conveyancers who have avoided building large operations on the back of
intermediary-introduced conveyancing find themselves best placed to develop relationships with
agents. There remain however some important technological requirements.
Such workflow (or ‘HIPlet’!) is going to automate the inception of an instruction, understand its
source and possibly its content (where the model allows for different types of Pack). It will
instigate requests for data from third parties as necessary (Sellers information and searches)
and allocate tasks to internal teams. These tasks then are captured within ‘to do’ lists with
suitable escalations, prompts and use of robots. The HIPlet will provide a full audit trail and
publish Management Information.
Secondly, this workflow is going to have to be based upon the forthcoming PISCES schema
that have been devised for the HIP environment. Law firms should adopt these. The schema
uses xml as the format and consequently law firms should ensure their case management
suppliers are up to the challenge (xml capability is a racing cert for the world of e conveyancing
in any event).
Thirdly, law firms are going to want to be able to seamlessly move a case from its ‘HIP form’
into their case management system but beyond this, it is probable that they themselves will
need to be able to panel out the instruction to other law firms. It isn’t likely that a conveyancer
can manage all the conveyancing associated with the HIPs they have supplied so there is a
happy scenario in which law firms use technology to panel instructions to fellow professionals.
Some solutions will incorporate both this HIPlet dimension and a panel management tool within
their proposition whilst others will leave the law firm to build the complete picture.
Technology per se isn’t going to be a defining requirement. Packaged technology supplied by
major players, available off the shelf, is going to be the conduit for the delivery of professional
services to the seller at the point of instruction. Conveyancers can just as easily use these
packages as anyone else (more so with their ability to add interpretive elements and manage
the significant minority of exception cases). Consequently they can use this as a Trojan horse
to inveigle themselves in the process from the outset and bind themselves to the subsequent
conveyance which remains a key driver for much of the estate agency market.
The successful firms will not be the ones with the greatest investment in technology but those
who have sourced the HIP platform which best suits their ambition, have integrated with it and
have best sold their services to their introducers – be they estate agents, mortgage brokers or
developers.
For further investigation, most of these solutions can be accessed from the Association of
Home Information Pack Providers website at www.hipassociation.co.uk.
Richard Hinton has worked in the legal and technology industries for 15 years, firstly as
Business Development Director with Shoosmiths and now with Visualfiles, www.visualfiles.com,
as Head of Residential Property. He is the commercial architect of the business’s HIP
application.
Visualfiles is the leading supplier of case management technology to the legal marketplace. It
has jointly developed the HIP application that is in use with First Title and is available as a
technology platform to the whole market. Clients include 4 of the UK’s top 5 lenders, several
major Utility Companies, the largest conveyancer in the UK, nearly half the members of the
Direct Conveyancing Association and several hundred other law firms.
Back to Contents.
How to work with HIPs
For the last 10 years or so the fragmented nature of the conveyancing market and the apparent
distance between the conveyancer and the seller’s legal purchasing decision has been
successfully exploited by estate agents and panel managers. They have channelled
conveyancing instructions to their own panels and of course to their own advantage.
by Richard Hinton
The HIPs battleground
If HIPs are to be the new battleground on which sellers (and buyers) will be won and lost, then
some of the HIP offerings out there that have been designed to dovetail with conveyancers
could be the ‘exoskeleton’ the profession has desperately needed. In the right hands and with
the right ambition they could be used as a tool to correct the structural imperfections which have
previously been exploited by third parties.Generic HIP Models
There are two principal models. Technological Requirements for Conveyancers
Firstly, no conveyancer trying to supply a legal component to a HIP in either of the two models
above can do so without some type of workflow to automate the procedure. They are going to
be operating in a very time sensitive environment (if you thought agents were pushy on
conveyancing, wait until you’re holding up their HIP!) and dealing with volume. These, with a
relatively simple process added, are the foundation stones of case management. Anyone trying
to provide content for a HIP using a manual process is not going to feature in any but the most
niche of agents’ plans.Final Thoughts
The introduction of HIPs will send shockwaves through the profession but there are some real
positives.
Email r.hinton@visualfiles.com.