Conveyance overhaul proposed to speed up property deals

THE Law Society of Ireland has proposed a radical overhaul of existing conveyancing methods to simplify and speed up the legal verification of property transactions.

A new report on electronic conveyancing — otherwise known as e-conveyancing — by the Law Society recommends a “back to basics” approach for the legal transfer of ownership of property.

Among its main recommendations is that the seller of houses should in future be required to disclose any potential issues surrounding the title of property in a move designed to remove some of the onus on buyers to carry out numerous searches and inquiries. However, it stressed that purchasers would still have to carry out their own surveys of the property.