Conveyancer Numbers Slump: Why Your Sale Could Take Longer

By Lisa Hayes · 22 September 2026

England and Wales have lost more than 2,000 residential conveyancing solicitors in about four years. The IRN UK Residential Conveyancing Market Report 2026, reported by Estate Agent Today on 21 September, counts 10,724 solicitors practising in residential conveyancing in January 2026. At the end of 2021 there were more than 12,700. For anyone selling this autumn, that means fewer people doing the legal work, each carrying a heavier load, in a market where time is already short. Getting a buyer is only half the job. The other half is getting the sale through the legal pipeline before something breaks.

This story won't grab headlines the way a house price index does. I'd still argue it matters more to your sale than a 0.7% move in asking prices. A price wobble costs you a few thousand pounds on paper. A sale that stalls for twelve weeks and then collapses can cost you your onward purchase, your mortgage rate and a whole season of the market. So here's what the report says, why it's happening, and what you can do about it.

• 10,724solicitors practising in residential conveyancing (England & Wales, Jan 2026)
• 2,000+fewer than at the end of 2021
• 5,904UK law firms estimated to be active in the sector
• +41%year-on-year rise in conveyancing complaints (Legal Ombudsman)

What exactly did the report find?

The figures come from Access Legal's annual State of the UK Conveyancing Market report, a legal technology firm, which draws on the IRN market research. It looked at 15 months of HM Land Registry data, from April 2025 to June 2026. Its main findings:

• 10,724 solicitors were practising in residential conveyancing in England and Wales by January 2026. That's more than 2,000 fewer than at the end of 2021. Estate Agent Today describes it as close to a 20% drop in five years.
• An estimated 5,904 UK law firms are active in residential conveyancing.
• The solicitors who are left face high workloads and longer completion times. Access Legal says this is causing bottlenecks and a risk of burnout.
• Paperwork has grown since April 2025. The report points to stricter anti-money laundering rules, mandatory new TA6 and TA7 property forms and revised MLR guidance, with more Treasury reviews expected before the end of the year.

Andrew Stevens, general manager at Access Legal, is quoted as saying that "law firms can't simply ask conveyancers to work longer hours to solve the deficit challenge". His answer is technology. That's not surprising from a company that sells legal software, and I'll come back to it. The headcount figure stands on its own, though. Far fewer people are now doing the job that gets your house legally from you to your buyer.

Why are there fewer conveyancers?

The report doesn't give a single cause. What it does describe, and what anyone who has sold a home recently will recognise, is a job that keeps getting harder while the fee stays about the same.

Residential conveyancing is high-volume, often fixed-fee work. Firms tend to win it on price. Each file now carries more compliance work than it did a few years ago: identity and source-of-funds checks under anti-money laundering rules, more detailed property information forms, and a steady flow of guidance updates. None of that extra work is optional, and most of it can't be passed on to clients without losing business to a cheaper firm.

It's also the most complained-about area of legal practice. The Negotiator reported on 22 September that the Legal Ombudsman's latest data shows residential conveyancing makes up 36% of all complaints accepted, and that those complaints rose 41% year on year. The usual complaints are poor communication, delays and failure to progress. Those are exactly the problems that get worse when there are fewer people handling more files.

Put that together and you get a squeeze. Firms cut back or leave the sector, solicitors move to less stressful areas of law, and the ones who stay take on more files. More files per person means slower replies. Slower replies mean more complaints. More complaints make the job less appealing still.

Does this actually slow down my sale?

Usually, yes. The report itself talks about "longer completion times". The more useful point is where the delay tends to land.

Most sellers think of the risky part of selling as finding a buyer. In practice, many sales collapse after an offer is accepted, in the weeks between "sale agreed" and exchange of contracts, when nothing is legally binding. In England and Wales either side can walk away at any point before exchange, for any reason. The longer that gap lasts, the more chance there is for something to go wrong: a buyer's mortgage offer running out, a survey turning up a problem, someone further down the chain losing their buyer, or plain nerves.

Recent figures show how big that gap already is. Data company TwentyEA, reported by Estate Agent Today on 18 September, found how many sales reach exchange within three months of being agreed. It varies a lot by region:

Region	Sales reaching exchange within 3 months
Scotland (separate legal system)	72%
North East	58.4%
Yorkshire and the Humber	55.6%
East Midlands	50.4%
West Midlands	49.9%
North West	47.6%
Inner London	35.4%
Outer London	31.1%

Source: TwentyEA, via Estate Agent Today, 18 September 2026.

Look at the bottom of that table. In Outer London, fewer than a third of agreed sales have exchanged after three months. Even in England's fastest region, the North East, around four in ten haven't. Those are the figures before any further effect from fewer solicitors doing the work.

TwentyEA's director, Nick Huntley, said Scotland was "outperforming England by a country mile yet again". Scotland's system is different: offers become binding much earlier. That tells you something important. A lot of the delay in England and Wales comes from how the system is built, not just from how busy it is. A shortage of conveyancers makes a slow system slower. It didn't make it slow in the first place.

Is AI making things worse?

In a small but telling way, it might be. The Negotiator reported on 22 September that law firm RG Law is seeing more buyers use AI tools to draft long lists of questions and complaints for their conveyancer, often without the full context of their transaction.

In one case, a buyer used AI to write a complaint demanding outstanding information within seven days and threatening to pull out of the purchase. According to RG Law, the complaint didn't take into account that the property was leasehold, or that the draft contract pack had only arrived nine weeks earlier. Another client sent questions on fire-safety works, asbestos, reserve funds and future costs. Some had already been answered in reports the buyer had received. Others were still waiting on the seller's side.

Loren Ringshall, a conveyancing case manager at RG Law, put it plainly: AI "can produce a response that sounds authoritative, but is based on assumptions, general information or an incomplete picture of the case." Every one of those questions still has to be checked against the file and answered properly, and that takes time away from moving the transaction forward.

I don't blame buyers for this. People are anxious and they want to feel in control. But it does add work for a smaller pool of lawyers. If you're selling, you can't control what your buyer types into a chatbot. You can make sure that when their questions reach your solicitor, the answers are ready, which I'll cover below.

Why does this matter so much right now?

Because of timing. A slow legal process costs more in some markets than others, and this autumn it could cost a lot.

Look at what else has happened in the past few weeks:

• Lots of competing sellers. Rightmove's September report says the number of homes for sale is at a 12-year high, and agreed sales are 9% lower than a year ago. Estate Agent Today reported that listings in England rose from 331,255 at the end of August to 385,565 just 14 days later.
• Rising mortgage rates. Moneyfacts data shows the average two-year fix at 5.77% and the average five-year fix at 5.83% on 16 September. Several big lenders, including NatWest, Santander, HSBC and Lloyds, raised rates twice in early September.
• A split Bank of England. Bank Rate was held at 3.75% on 17 September, but three of the nine Monetary Policy Committee members voted to raise it to 4%.
• Softer prices. Lloyds reported the first annual fall in house prices since November 2023 (-0.4% in the year to August). Rightmove's asking prices rose 0.7% this month but are still 0.8% lower than a year ago.

Here's why that matters for a slow sale. Suppose your buyer secured a mortgage offer in August at a rate they could afford. If the legal work drags on and that offer runs out, which typically happens after around six months (check the terms of any offer you're relying on), they may have to reapply at September's higher rates. Some won't pass the affordability check again. Some will try to renegotiate the price. Some will just walk away. In a market with a 12-year high in stock, they'll have plenty of other homes to choose from.

Put simply, every extra week between sale agreed and exchange is a week in which the market can move against you. At the moment, it has been moving the wrong way for sellers.

Is the technology fix realistic?

Partly. Access Legal says technology is "the natural answer to growing capacity without growing headcount", and firms that can handle more files per lawyer will do best over the next year. There's something in that. Digital ID checks, online property forms and case-tracking portals do cut out a lot of back-and-forth.

But be wary of the neat version of this story. A software firm saying the answer is software is, at the very least, a convenient conclusion. Technology helps a lawyer process a file faster. It doesn't make a freeholder answer a leasehold enquiry sooner, speed up a slow local authority search, or stop a chain three links away from falling apart. As the RG Law example shows, some technology creates extra work.

The honest picture for the next six to twelve months: legal capacity will stay tight, some firms will get quicker, and the average sale won't speed up much. Plan on that basis.

What about the government's homebuying reforms?

They're coming, and they're aimed at this very problem. The government's proposals include more upfront property information, digital property logbooks and ideas around binding agreements earlier in the process. Estate Agent Today notes that agents are being briefed this week on sales packs, digital logbooks and upfront information. TwentyEA's Nick Huntley said the regional figures were "why we've welcomed the government's reforms".

Two things to keep in mind. First, reforms take time to become law and even longer to change how firms actually work. If you're selling this autumn or winter, they won't help you. Second, the reforms are likely to push more work to the start of the process, onto sellers, before a property is even listed. That's not a bad thing. It means the sellers who get organised early now are already doing what the reformed system will eventually require.

If I'm selling, what should I do now?

This is the part you can control. Most of it comes down to one idea: do the legal groundwork before you have a buyer, not after. Your solicitor can't lose time waiting on you if nothing is waiting on you.

1. Instruct a solicitor or conveyancer before you list

Don't wait until you've accepted an offer. Laura Catania, a partner at Attwells Solicitors, told Estate Agent Today on 18 September that buyers hoping to be in their new home by Christmas "should ideally instruct a conveyancer by mid-September". We're past that date. The same logic applies to sellers: get your conveyancer on file now and the legal work can start the day an offer is accepted. With fewer conveyancers around, the good ones may be turning work away. Book early.

2. Fill in your property forms straight away

The TA6 property information form and the TA10 fittings and contents form are the ones sellers most often sit on for weeks. The TA6 was updated recently and asks more than older versions did. Do it now, honestly and fully. A gap or vague answer on the TA6 is almost guaranteed to trigger more enquiries later, and each round of enquiries can add days or weeks.

3. Gather your paperwork in one place

Before you list, find and scan:

• Building regulations sign-offs and any planning permissions for extensions, loft conversions, new windows or removed walls
• FENSA or equivalent certificates for replacement windows and doors
• Gas Safe and electrical certificates for any work carried out
• Guarantees and warranties (damp-proofing, roofing, boiler, cavity wall insulation)
• Your EPC (check it's still valid)
• Your ID and proof of address, ready for money laundering checks

Missing paperwork is one of the most common reasons sales slow down, and one of the easiest to fix in advance.

4. If you're leasehold, start on the management pack now

This is where the worst delays happen. The RG Law case above was a leasehold sale with a buyer frustrated nine weeks in. Contact your managing agent or freeholder now and ask about the leasehold management information pack (usually called an LPE1 or equivalent), how long it takes and what it costs. Some take weeks. Pay for it early if you can. Also check how many years are left on your lease. If it's getting short, speak to your solicitor before you list, not after an offer.

5. Be picky about your buyer, not just the price

In a slower legal environment, who buys your house matters as much as how much they offer. Before accepting, ask your agent:

• Does the buyer have a mortgage in principle, and from which lender?
• Do they have a property to sell? If so, is it under offer, and how long is their chain?
• Have they already instructed a solicitor?
• Are they a first-time buyer, a cash buyer or in a chain?

A slightly lower offer from a chain-free, mortgage-ready buyer with a solicitor already instructed can be worth more than a higher offer that sits in limbo for four months. If you're not sure what jargon like "chain-free" or "proceedable" really means, our property jargon guide explains it.

6. Price realistically from the start

This might seem unrelated to conveyancing, but it isn't. A home that's overpriced sits on the market, gets reduced, and often attracts a buyer who later tries to renegotiate after the survey, which means more delay. With stock at a 12-year high, pricing right at launch matters more than it has in years. Start with an independent figure: our free house valuation guide and the latest house prices data are good places to begin.

7. Answer your solicitor quickly and fully

When enquiries come in, reply within a day or two if you can. One slow reply from you can hold up a whole chain. If you're asked something you don't know, say so and say when you'll find out, rather than going quiet.

8. Know your options if time really matters

If you have a hard deadline, such as a job move, a probate sale, a separation, or an onward purchase you can't afford to lose, it's worth knowing that the traditional route isn't the only one. Cash buyers remove the mortgage risk and many work with their own panel solicitors who move quickly. The trade-off is price: offers are usually below full market value. That trade-off makes sense for some people and not for others, and it only works if you compare several offers side by side. Our guides to selling your house fast and choosing a reputable cash house buyer explain how it works and what to watch out for.

What's the outlook?

Legal capacity won't recover quickly. You can't train a new generation of conveyancing solicitors in a year, and the pressures pushing people out of the job (fixed fees, more compliance, high complaint rates) haven't gone away. Access Legal expects more Treasury reviews before the end of the year, which could add paperwork rather than remove it.

Two things could help. Transaction volumes are falling (Rightmove reports agreed sales 9% lower than a year ago), which should ease pressure on law firms at the margin. And the reforms, when they arrive, should move much of the paperwork to before a sale is agreed, which is where it belongs.

In the meantime, expect the legal side of a sale in England and Wales to take a while, and plan for it. The sellers who come through this autumn well won't necessarily be the ones who priced highest. They'll be the ones who were ready before their buyer arrived, chose a buyer who could actually proceed, and didn't give the market extra weeks to move against them.

The bottom line

A 20% fall in conveyancing solicitors sounds like a problem for the legal profession. It's also a problem for you if you're selling, because it lengthens the most fragile part of a sale: the weeks between agreeing a price and exchanging contracts, when nothing is binding and rising mortgage rates are putting pressure on buyers. You can't fix the shortage. You can take yourself out of the queue of delays. Instruct a solicitor now, fill in your forms, gather your paperwork, sort your leasehold pack, and choose your buyer carefully.

If you'd like to see what your home could achieve, and compare how quickly different routes could get you to completion, you can compare offers and get a free valuation here. It's independent, free, and there's no obligation to accept anything.

Sources: Estate Agent Today (Access Legal / IRN UK Residential Conveyancing Market Report 2026; TwentyEA; Attwells Solicitors; Rightmove), The Negotiator (RG Law; Legal Ombudsman data), Moneyfacts, Bank of England, Lloyds House Price Index.