On 11 July, representatives from the Surrey Law Society committee, including President Dawn Lawson, attended a briefing by the Law Society on the upcoming Special General Meeting.
Following the meeting, the Law Society circulated these updates, which we are pleased to circulate to Surrey Law Society members.
In addition, SLS representatives raised a number of questions during the briefing, which we are sharing below alongside the answers since received from The Law Society:
Council Members did raise some concerns after the new form was launched in March. However, Council Members had also been part of the expert working group that created the new form. We have consistently received mixed views on the form with some members being concerned, and others being comfortable to adopt it and roll it out. As you would expect, we listen to a range of voices when we take decisions.
As noted above, feedback has consistently been mixed and we only decided to postpone the compulsory implementation once it was clear that there were more widespread calls for consultation from members.
Please see above.
The Law Society takes specialist advice from time to time to inform its work. Legal advice is sought on a privileged basis and, as members will readily appreciate, this is not generally shared in order to preserve that privilege. This also allows us to provide guidance resources which address issues wider than that covered in the specific advice taken.
The regulations on which any potential criminal liability are based are not new and have existed since the Consumer Protection Regulations were introduced in 2008. We sought advice when we published our Practice Note in 2016 and when we updated it in May of this year. There has been no change in risk from the introduction of the new version of TA6.
The risk arises in the limited circumstances of blatant cases of aggressive behaviour or sharp practice towards the buyer with many of the obligations on solicitors under the CPRs being those already expected of them by the SRA standards and regulations. Since 2008 there have been approximately around 15 million residential transactions, and we are not aware of any cases against solicitors under the legislation.
As the representative body of the profession, and your membership organisation, we hold ourselves to high standards. We would never seek to reassure the profession if the expert advice did not demonstrate that the concerns about increased liability are unfounded.
We believe we have responded to concerns as we have now launched a consultation that is comprehensive and aims to engage members whether they are using the new TA6 or not.