January 2018 Newsletter

Setting the agenda for 2018

Don’t forget to book your FREE place for our 2018 Conference, on Wednesday, 24^th January at County Hall on the South Bank in Central London. 4.5 hours CPD will be awarded.

We’ve got some great speakers lined up to lead discussions on transforming the home buying process and how diversity can increase business success. We’ll also look at early analysis of your responses to our consultation on increasing the information available to help consumers choose their conveyancer.

Book now

Metro Bank panel

We are delighted to advise that Metro Bank will be admitting CLC-regulated firms on to their panel from 1^st February 2018

The criteria for panel membership are:

• Minimum 2 partners
• At least 120 conveyancing transactions in the last 12 months
• Professional indemnity insurance limit of at least £2m (this is of course a CLC requirement for all firms)

Unlike SRA-regulated firms, CLC firms will not need CQS accreditation in order to act for Metro Bank.

If you have not already heard from ULS and meet the Metro Bank criteria, please feel free to use the following link to register with ULS and apply to join the panel.

Link to register: https://panelapplications.ulst.co.uk/Login.aspx

SDLT becomes LTT in Wales on 1^st April 2018

The new Land Transaction Tax (LTT) will come into effect on 1st April 2018, replacing SDLT in Wales.

The Welsh Treasury has published the rates and bands for LTT in its Welsh Tax Policy Report, Autumn 2017.

Those rates have changed slightly since the original announcement earlier in 2017, so make sure that you have the up to date rates.

Find out more

New Regulatory Supervision Manager joins the CLC team

We are pleased to welcome Reena Saimbi to the CLC. Reena joins Nicola Anthony and John Hosie as a Regulatory Supervision Manager and will be getting in touch with firms in the coming weeks to introduce herself.

Cybercrime

Are you taking advantage of all of the available tools to help protect your clients and your business from cybercrime?

As a start, why not join the Take Five to Stop Fraud campaign. It provides a lot of useful advice and materials for your clients and colleagues: https://takefive-stopfraud.org.uk/

And take some time to check our dedicated webpage that brings together the best tools and advice from Action Fraud, the National Cyber Security Centre and the Information Commissioner: http://clc-uk.org/CLC-Lawyer/Tackling-Cybercrime.aspx