Articles From the Team

Rise of the Residential Conveyancing Market in Yorkshire and the North East

During the boom of the property market in 2004, I was working with a global real estate services provider within its residential development team and having moved over to legal recruitment shortly after this, I witnessed the downturn in the market in 2008. At this time, many firms were forced to make entire departments redundant and one of the worst hit sectors in the legal industry was residential conveyancing.

It was therefore a surprise but also a very reassuring sign of the times when I met with BCL to join the firm in a role specialising in recruiting fee earners purely within the residential conveyancing sector across the Yorkshire and North East markets.

Since 2013, there has been a significant increase in both the number of law firms and niche conveyancing houses recruiting residential conveyancing professionals across the board and the demand for high calibre candidates. There now appears to be a skills gap in the market due to many conveyancing specialists reluctantly having had to pursue legal careers in alternative sectors. There are however, still opportunities for these candidates providing they are realistic in terms of salary and firms are offering excellent training and development for candidates who are keen to return to the sector.

With the introduction of the Help 2 Buy schemes and Mortgage Strategy reporting a predicted 8% increase in house prices, it is no surprise residential property firms are now looking to expand their conveyancing teams and in some cases opening new offices to meet this demand.

We are currently working with a number of conveyancing firms recruiting at all levels across the North West, Yorkshire and the North East. If you would like more information regarding this, please contact Nicola Scahill or visit our BCL website.