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FormEvo’s Sales Director, Paul Clyde, was interviewed by Bill Kirby*
Efficiency and Compliance
Paul Clyde of FormEvo has advised me that late last year the Land Registry announced a change in their process with the move to mandating the use of a digital AP1 form from the 22nd of November this year. While this may not get your pulse racing but as you have got to make the change anyway why not make the most of it with some simple ideas right now that will enhance efficiency and compliance.
Paul advises “that you take this mandated change as an opportunity for so much more. With some simple planning now, we can remove the need to re-submit information into different portals time and time again. As a consequence, your staff can be engaged within a much more efficient process.
With a little foresight any firm no matter what their size should be able to take the data collated during the use of standard Searches to then re -use this to auto populate around 50-60% of their SDLT forms and then complete the process with up to 94% auto population of the eAP1”
Currently the Land Registry have taken a soft touch approach when they can see obvious mistakes within the AP1 such as inputting the transferee and transferor incorrectly and will amend this. Come November this will stop and if you make any mistakes then this will simply raise a Requisition.
Workflows can radically reduce the potential for these kinds of mistakes and so now is the time to think about introducing these across the conveyancing process.
Another issue that Paul sees on a regular basis is Law Society CQS Members who are not compliant. Let me ask you a question if your firm are members. Prior to an SDLT submission, is Q10 and Q4 double checked by someone other than the form creator and have you an audit trail available for review to prove it?
Section 1.2 of the scheme clearly states this requirement and yet not everyone who is a member complies with this!
Paul also says “Should you submit LTT’s to the Welsh Revenue Authority within your practice then there is no need to feel excluded from the above as you can combine processes that allow you to submit to either tax portals but again auto populated from Search data and then able to auto populate in turn the eAP1 and for commercial transactions even the MR01 Particulars of Charge at Companies House.”
Paul urges you to see the bigger picture opportunity here “This is not difficult to implement, Cloud technology means there is nothing to install and any updates are automatically available. So, seize this chance and make simple changes that can really make a difference to the efficiency in your practice”.
*Bill Kirby is a director of Professional Choice Consultancy offering advice to firms on business issues from strategy, planning, business development, the effective use of IT applications and IT hosting for compliance, business continuity and DR.
He can be contacted at billkirby@professionalchoiceconsultancy.com
