By any measure, Kevin Tunnicliffe has spent long enough in the property and mortgage ecosystem to know where it fails. His diagnosis of the UK conveyancing process is blunt: too cheap, too slow, and structurally set up to disappoint.
After starting out as a mortgage broker in the early 1990’s, Tunnicliffe built SortRefer in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, when the economics of broking deteriorated sharply and the conveyancing process exposed its weaknesses. What he saw then, he argues, still defines the sector today.
“There was no visibility,” he says. “Using a conveyancing platform, you’d submit a case to a conveyancer and hear nothing until completion – and then get a flood of emails showing what had already happened. That’s useless if you’re trying to manage the relationship, protect the client, or even just keep them informed.”
SortRefer was built to address that gap, integrating law firms directly into its systems so that updates flowed in real time. It was, at its core, a response to what he saw as a broken feedback loop between brokers, conveyancers and clients.
RACE TO THE BOTTOM
Nearly two decades on, the fundamental issue of communication hasn’t changed but its consequences have intensified. Furthermore, on pricing “The race to the bottom” never stopped.
Tunnicliffe’s central argument is that conveyancing has been trapped in a destructive pricing spiral since the late 2000’s.
“Panel managers made it a race to the bottom,” he says. “Law firms were constantly undercutting each other just to keep work coming in. The commerciality left the industry years ago – and it’s never really come back.
The result, he argues, is a system that cannot deliver what consumers expect.
“You’ve seen clients paying very little for a service, unaware that at times a large slice of that fee is being paid away as a referral fee, yet still expecting a premium outcome. It doesn’t work like that. If you pay a low fee, you get a low-fee service – and that means high caseloads, slower transactions and poor communication.”
This imbalance, he says, is at the root of many of the sector’s most persistent problems, from delays to fall-through rates.
LESS WORK, HIGHER FEES
Tunnicliffe’s solution runs counter to the industry’s prevailing model. Rather than driving volume, he argues firms should actively reduce caseloads and charge more.
“It sounds counterintuitive, but less is more,” he says. “If a conveyancer has fewer files, they can work them properly, communicate better, and complete faster. In many cases, they’ll bill more in a year”
He points to an internal pilot scheme where lower caseloads led to significantly faster progression times, happier staff and happier clients.
But that shift requires a fundamental reset in pricing. “You cannot fix this without increasing fees; and that increase shouldn’t just be to make the conveyancing firm more profitable – it has to go into paying staff properly, incentivising performance, improving the training and improving the culture.”
THE HUMAN BOTTLENECK
Technology, often positioned as the industry’s saviour, is not the answer on its own.
“There’s more tech now than ever,” Tunnicliffe says. “But the job itself has become more complex. Unless you give people the time to do it properly, technology won’t solve the problem.”
He is equally sceptical about the idea that artificial intelligence will replace conveyancers altogether.
“AI will absolutely help – particularly with things like identifying issues earlier or reducing errors. But this is still an emotional, high-stakes process. I don’t see it fully replacing the human role.”
Instead, he sees technology as an enabler – particularly within Sort’s own law firm arm, Sort Legal.
POST-COVID HANGOVER
If pricing is the structural issue, staffing is the immediate constraint. According to Tunnicliffe, the industry is still dealing with the fallout from the pandemic.
“Too many experienced people left – both after 2008 and again following Covid. They haven’t been replaced,” he says.
The demographic shift towards younger, less experienced conveyancers is creating additional strain and he feels that communication is possibly getting worse.
“You can qualify in a few years, but it takes many years of doing the job to become experienced at it. That experience gap is real, and it affects everything from speed to communication.” Compare it to driving a car, you can pass your test relatively quickly, but it takes years of driving to become an experienced driver.
Retention is another challenge, particularly given the pressures of the role. “It’s stressful, it’s emotional, and in many cases it’s not well paid. You can’t expect people to stay in that environment long-term unless something changes.”
COLLABORATION, NOT CONFLICT
One of Tunnicliffe’s more striking observations is how adversarial the property transaction process has become.
“For too long, the industry has just blamed each other – brokers blaming conveyancers, agents blaming conveyancers and even conveyancers blaming conveyancers! Everyone pointing fingers,” he says.
His alternative is a more integrated model, bringing brokers, agents and conveyancers into closer alignment, sometimes physically, through “property hubs” where multiple services operate under one roof.
“If everyone is working together with the same goal – getting the client to completion quickly and smoothly – the whole process improves,” he says. “If you don’t move towards that, you risk being left behind.”
A VOICE FOR THE SECTOR
Pushing 60, Tunnicliffe is increasingly focused on influencing the wider market rather than just his own business. He believes that there needs to be a fundamental mindset change, as the conveyancing sector has possibly accepted that the ‘new norm’ is that it will take 14-16 weeks to complete a transaction.
“What frustrates me is that when you say these things in a room, everyone nods,” he says. “But then nothing changes.”
He sees a role for panel managers in enforcing higher standards; which includes resisting downward pressure on fees, even when firms are willing to undercut. Which means that Panel Managers stop trying to sell their services based on the amount of a referral fee that an introducer can earn by using their platform over another. Tunnicliffe strongly believes that there should be a cap on referral fees and a much more transparent way of quoting.
“We actively discourage firms to drop their prices,” he says. “If we keep pushing fees down, we’re just making the problem worse.”
THE LONG VIEW
For Tunnicliffe, the goal is not incremental improvement but systemic change.
“If we can get the balance right – fair pricing, manageable workloads, better communication – then you start to fix the fundamentals,” he says.
It is, by his own admission, an ambitious target. But without it, he suggests, the industry risks remaining locked in the same cycle that has defined it for nearly two decades – one where cost pressures undermine service, and service failures reinforce the pressure to cut costs further.
“Everybody knows what needs to change,” he says. “The question is whether the industry is actually prepared to do it.”
