Property services firm Move with Us has handed a record £200,000 to one agency firm alone for just one month’s referral fees.
Move with Us conveyancing director Ian Fletcher handed the cheque for David Lench, managing director at Arun Estates, for completions in August.
Other industry brands with record financial rewards from conveyancing in the same months include Chancellors, Beals, Andrew Craig and Peter Alan.
Move with Us said that August’s conveyancing levels were up 21% on August last year, aided by its ‘enhanced conveyancing service’ – which includes the introduction of an online tracking system.
Fletcher said: “We are proud to have helped our agents to the record month they experienced. It’s down to the estate agents we work with as well as the team here at headquarters that have made this possible, helping everyone achieve positive results in a difficult market.
“Thanks to our rigorous service level agreements with our partner solicitors, we are able to stick to strict conveyancing deadlines, allowing movers to take advantage of the quiet month and the bank holiday.”
Cambridge-based Move with Us, which has a network of over 1,100 agents, has been managing 30,000 conveyancing transactions every year but says it is on course to hit 40,000 this year.
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Comments
The referral fee is £490 + VAT and is stated at the end of the MoveWithUs terms and conditions...
Good business if you can get it...
JB
Surely there is a requirement to disclose any introducer income, whether a regulated or non-regulated 'sale' or introduction?
We have to clearly show how much we get for a Referral Fee to Solicitors in our Suitabilty Letters - Network Requirement.
Is this a case where those who are regulated have to be very clear, and those 'unregulated' can get away with anything they like?
Arun have 100 offices (ish) so 10 completed conveyance matters / say 5 with referred solicitor on each side
Easily done, although id be a bit quiet about it – telling your customers you skimmed £200k off their legal fees on a public forum doesn’t seem wise
...ah yes, of course! In my haste I forgot that it's a double up per transaction. Doh!
So, re-working it again it comes out as:
900,000 transactions
1,800,000 Conveyances
Move With Us do 30,000 conveyances so that's 1.75% of the conveyance market...still a lot but maybe more believable?
And, £200,000 paid to one agency for one month's completions at £200 per case (I'm guessing) could either be 1000 completions or 500 completions if they were getting paid on both sides of each transaction...that still seems a lot to me but I may be wrong?
Or maybe they get a much higher commission amount per case ? only Arun Estates can answer that one!
@ BA Baracus
900,000 a year but with 2 sides to every deal is 1,800,000 conveyances.
Does that change your numbers / view much
Jonnie
Qqqq
They claim to have a 'network' of 1100 agents - that would appear to be around 10% of the total in the UK, given that one source suggests there are 9500 or so in E&W.... anyone got another figure?
I also find this a bit far-fetched.....
I find those figures hard to believe.
According to HMRC in 2011 there were about 900,000 transactions, so if Move With US were managing 30,000 transactions per year then thats about 3.5% of the total market, which seems high.
Assuming an average commission of £200 per transaction then £200,000 for one agency firm for one month's completions is roughly 1000 transactions, which seems extraordinary.
Something is not right with those figures.