Subtext: they need to get the process complete before the buyer and banks have changed their mind and the deal falls through.
On the other hand, it is also true that when you buy a house, it should be straightforward, and should have been forever.
The solicitors get paid anyway, don’t they? It’s not like the estate agents who are dependent on the sale going through.
But thats the problem for solicitors, if you remove the mystery of conveyencing how do you justify your charges?
You make it sound like conveyancing is simply an exchange of information. 
ah, i think the subtext is a little different tbf
face it, solicitors and various other scum have been coining it for years with conveyancing. Its boring clerical work, they employ kids still qualifying to do it and make a lot of money. They aren’t making as much now as transactions are down but they’ll get paid one way or the other.
I reckon they see the writing on the wall for the existing restrictive practices and are being dragged kicking and screaming into the 20’th century. By putting their own proposals for eConveyancing they may be trying to maintain control of the process or maybe even cynically putting a rolls royce solution up there as this will start a 20 year debate rather than opening the process up incrementally.
would be interesting to know who in the civil service is reading these proposals. And if one of the goals is to allow an ordinary punter to complete conveyancing without the need for a solicitor.
And also of course there are implications for tax policy if an efficient up to date registry is implemented.
Am I right in assuming a large does of sarcasm here?
When has anyone in govt ever done anything that might be in the interest of the ordinary punter?
I know I’m just a cynical bastard, but why do they think its important to reduce the search period down to 7 years, not 10 or 20 ?
That takes us back only as far as 2001, the start of our little bubble, & doesn’t even extend back to the period before the Tribunals when all the ‘interesting’ transactions were going on.
Are the Solicitors going to reduce their rates to reflect the reduced amount of work necessary to do this appreviated search. I somehow doubt it.
As ever the Romans had a nice phrase, ‘Qui Bene ?’, Who benefits.
I’d be more worried about the law society, Our government aren’t the worst 
The article says the Law Society has made a proposal to the government. Its not on www.lawsociety.ie, ironic that its not available online
Actually, it would be great if every proposal put to our government was freely available online. whether its this or pre budget submissions etc… It couldn’t cost that much to implement and would be well worth the money… Im sure plenty of forums would volunteer to publish them for free, I know I would
I was talking to solicitor about this.
They agreed that eConveyancing would be bad news for the industry and would be resisted, or at least stalled on if possible, however they reckoned that we will never reach a stage where conveyancing can be done with just a few clicks of mouse.
There will always be disputes over boundaries, issues with planning, discrepancies with deeds and so forth that will require the assistance of a solicitor.
the reason for the seven years for the planning search might relate to the period after which there is immunity from planning enforcement, which is seven years.
The Law society should not have control of this issue. This is a matter for a Government to administer. No more closed shops.
Where do you get the idea that there is immunity after 7 years ?
My understanding is that after 7 years you can apply for retention. Approval for retention is far from guaranteed, which is why you should never buy a house which has an unapproved extension etc, regardless of the time passed.
agree 100%
But it raises some interesting questions as to how we run our democracy and country.
This proposal (and most others) are not available for public viewing, so we just get to see some journalists opinion of it. We dont even know if that journalist has seen it and analyzed it or if its just reformatting a press release from a PR company. We dont know who the proposal has been made to, if its a one pager or a costed proposal with obligations, responsibilites etc on all sides, what implications. It could be some bullshit PR summer story or it could be serious, who knows?
But to me the word proposal implies an offer to someone; something that can be rejected, accepted or haggled back and forth on. Its a bit more than a submission to a regulatory authority, or a budget submission.
Its perfectly OK for them to make a proposal just as it would be perfectly OK for me to send a proposal on how to run the country.
But given who it is and who benefits from the status quo makes this interesting… and also makes the fact that we cant see the details of it interesting.
The broader question is why the hell are we working like this? Why not ensure proposals or submissions are publically available by default. At least then people could see whats going on. Maybe we could use “the wisdom of crowds” to sort the wheat from the chaff.
Sure there will be proposals for stuff like defence/security or proposals with other sensitive information that would not suit publication. But why have all the needless secrecy, the only people who benefit are the closed shops.
They don;t need immunity here, no one who is, or used to be, in power ever gets prosecuted, if all fails they can get quizzed by a tribunal and then claim inability to get a fair trial.
I stand by my s
I got the idea from the Planning and Development Act 2000 - am also speaking in very general terms. How that period is calculated depends on type of development, whether its illegal development without any permission or has been carried out in breach of a permission, whether it is a continuing use, also the type of enforcement action being considered - not going to go into that here because its not relevant - its just that seven years isn’t an illogical period to use when it comes to planning searches (not making any comment on whether the Law Society proposals are good or not, e-conveyancing is not an interest of mine!)
You don’t have to wait 7 years before you apply for retention, although you’re right, approval is far from guaranteed.
Why its not a good idea to buy a house with an approved extension etc after 7 years is because there are still consequences from a development being “illegal but immune” - for example no insurance if building burnt in fire, difficulties if future permission required. The bank may balk at giving a mortgage. This may be why the proposals include a planning amnesty.
I should have been clearer, I wasn’t having a go at you comet 
Your absolutely correct, my comment was more around the immunity word. It implies a black & white situation that, like everything in Ireland, never occurs
I wonder is the 7 years linked to planning. My limited understanding of conveyancing is that it is primarily concerned with establishing ‘clear title’ i.e. Who owns a property. Given this & the recent discussion here about ‘Adverse Possession’ maybe 12 years would be a better line in the sand for searches ?
Oops, hope I didn’t come across as touchy! In respect of establishing clear title (rather than just checking that planning is in order), I’m not really sure what would be the appropriate time-lines.
It’s possible that the Law Society had good intentions, because I understand the whole system is a bit of a mess, particularly unregistered land in Dublin. However, turkeys don’t vote for Christmas, so I doubt that solicitors would be putting forward proposals that might be doing themselves out of a job!
In relation to transparency and publishing of proposals submitted, it is one area where government has improved quite a lot in recent times. Taking the area I’m most familiar with, Energy, the regulator does usually post all responses to a proposal or decision paper on-line. This is a huge improvement on the recent past where state bodies/ ministeries just made decisions and that was it, no matter how poorly they were received. Part of the issue is that only responses to a proposal see the light of day, any random docs submitted to the regulator don’t get published.