Law Society pulls the plug on costly conveyancing portal

Veyo, the new conveyancing portal backed by the Law Society, has shut up shop just months after launching – and shortly after it was mentioned by the president of the Law Society at a conference last week.

Conveyancer Rob Hailsone, of the Bold Legal Group, told EYE: “I was at a conveyancing conference on Thursday and Jonathan Smithers mentioned Veyo briefly, indicating that we would be hearing more shortly.

“What he omitted to tell us that the ‘more’ would be in a few hours’ time, advising us of Veyo’s demise.”

The Law Society has said that it is ceasing from making further investment. Its technology partner Mastek (UK) said the same.

Both the Veyo website and Twitter account are now inactive.

Veyo had an inauspicious start, launching two months behind schedule in May. An interview was given to EYE by its chief executive who, it emerged, left almost immediately afterwards.

Veyo aimed to be a case-handling system, bringing together electronically all the processes, checks and documentation undertaken in conveyancing.

Agents were also invited to sign up to Veyo, enabling them to track transactions online. It was never clear how many agents actually did so – something else that Hailstone has queried.

Veyo’s demise follows the spectacular failure of the Land Registry’s similar venture, Chain Matrix, which was shelved in 2007 after a reported spend of £4.6m.

Two months ago, EYE reported a stream of departures from Veyo, including its first and interim CEOs and chairman, the latter replaced by a turnaround specialist.

The Law Society is thought to have invested over £5m in Legal Practice Technologies, the joint venture set up to deliver Veyo.

One major setback was in September, when a free version of Veyo called Free2Convey was launched by the Legal Software Suppliers Association.

But even by then, major conveyancing firms, for example My Home Move, already had their own online case-handling systems described as far superior.

The Law Society said: “It is with considerable regret that we are announcing that we will not be making any further investment in Veyo.

“Other software providers operating in the conveyancing market are responding to our members’ needs and so we have decided to step back.

“We are committed to identifying unmet member need and innovation, but on this occasion we also have recognised the reality that the market has developed significantly since we started to develop Veyo and that the costs of continuing outweigh the benefit to our members.

“We are deeply sorry that those who have waited patiently for the Veyo conveyancing portal from our joint venture will not now be able to use it.

“We knew that the project carried risk, as all technological innovations do. Unfortunately it is no longer in our members’ interests to invest resources to make a product of the high quality our members expect and deserve.

“The timetable for getting Veyo to market was, in retrospect, over-ambitious.

“We have made the very difficult decision not to invest further in light of developments in the market which mean that case management providers are likely to meet our members’ needs at no additional cost.”

Hailstone said that the whole matter had been a “fiasco” which had rumbled on for over two years.

He accused the Law Society of repeated spin during that time, including its claim to have talked to estate agents about their participation.

Originally posted here.

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