A 60% annual rise in property transaction activity saw the average conveyancing firm clock up its busiest financial year on record in 2021/2022, according to the Q1 2022 edition of the Conveyancing Market Tracker from Search Acumen, the property data and insight provider.
With pandemic restrictions lifted and industry scrambling to process a backlog of transactions, high registration volumes during Q1 2022 contributed to a total of 1.26m completed transactions in total that were processed by HM Land Registry (HMLR) during the 2021/22 financial year.
The tracker – which monitors business activity and competitive pressures in the conveyancing market – shows this annual total was 87% up on the previous financial year, when just 675,377 transactions were recorded as the market was knocked off course by the coronavirus pandemic. It also represented a 34% increase compared with the 2019/20 financial year before the pandemic first took hold.
Search Acumen’s analysis shows the rush of activity brought more firms back into the conveyancing market. An average of 4,058 firms were active each quarter during 2021/22, up from 3,483 in year one of the pandemic during 2020/21.
Bank of England withdraws mortgage affordability test
The Bank of England said last week that its Financial Policy Committee would withdraw its mortgage affordability test recommendation following a review of the mortgage market.
The withdrawal will come into effect from August, the BoE said.
The central bank introduced the test in 2014 to ensure that borrowers do not become a threat to financial stability by taking on debt they could not afford to repay.
The BoE said its loan-to-income "flow limit" would not be withdrawn and, alongside other affordability assessments, would help to protect the financial system in a simpler, more predictable and more proportionate way.