Conveyancing Association announces new affiliate member and retirement of its operations director




The Conveyancing Association (CA) has appointed SDLT Compass as its new affiliate member.

SDLT Compass is a bespoke software solution which produces up-to-date stamp duty land tax calculations for conveyancing firms and mitigates against errors being made. 

Built in conjunction with tax advisers and conveyancers, the system is designed to fit into a firm’s workflow, is able to be integrated into any case management system.

The software is updated constantly to reflect the latest changes in SDLT legislation to provide accurate and up-to-date figures.

It will also refer the firm and the client to a dedicated SDLT specialist for further advice in particularly complex or unclear situations.

Chris Ward, managing director at SDLT Compass, will be joining the CA’s legal members meeting on 21st October 2021 to participate in a ‘SDLT Pitfalls and Solutions’ session, where he will present CA members with the benefits of using SDLT Compass.

He will also be joined by Edward Donne, director at Howden, to discuss SDLT issues, claims and how they can be avoided.

Nicky Heathcote, non-executive chair at the CA, said: “We are very pleased to welcome SDLT Compass as the newest affiliate member of the association and are looking forward to Chris and his team taking a full part in our events, starting with our next legal members’ meeting. 

“Stamp duty calculation is an important part of the purchase process to get right and I’m sure our members will be interested to hear about the SDLT Compass proposition and what it is able to offer their firms.”

Earlier this week, the CA also announced that its operations director, Lloyd Davies, has decided to retire from his position and will not be standing as a director at the upcoming CA annual general meeting on the 21st October.

Lloyd took up the role in 2015 and has played a key role over the years in helping the CA provide leadership and practice guidance for its membership, as well as in helping to guide CA strategy and policy, along with fellow policy and strategy board members. 

Since his appointment as operations director, the number of CA legal member practices has increased by 50%, with affiliate membership also growing over 100%. 

Lloyd is retiring from his voluntary role with the CA to concentrate on his personal, business and charity commitments.  

He is the founder and managing director of Convey Law and the Conveyancing Academy and the chairman of the Conveyancing Foundation, which has raised hundreds of thousands of pounds for charity since inception and introduced the ‘Be Kind We Care’ initiative to help safeguard mental health wellbeing and professional behaviour in the industry this year.  

“After six years as operations director of the CA, the time is right for me to move on and I hope I have done everything possible to ensure the future success of the CA and its great work for the conveyancing community. 

“I have thoroughly enjoyed my time with the CA and Convey Law will remain proud and active legal members; sharing best practice and learning from other like-minded conveyancing leaders has been quite brilliant.  

“Working with both legal members and affiliates, who have become business colleagues and friends, has been wonderful and I would like to thank everyone for their friendship and willingness to innovate together over so many years.

“We all still have a lot of work to do in ‘changing the way that we convey’ over the coming years and my team and I look forward to working with everyone in the conveyancing industry to help define best practice solutions to make the digital future of conveyancing a reality for us all.”

Nicky added: “We would like to thank Lloyd for everything he has done for the CA and the wider conveyancing industry since he took up the voluntary role of operations director six years ago. 

“Everyone involved in the CA will be sad to see him stepping back from the association, as he has been one of the driving forces behind its success in recent times.

“Lloyd has been pivotal in the growth of the CA, not just in terms of increasing our membership base, both legal practice members and affiliates, but also with regards to the high esteem the association is now held in and the influence it holds. 

“We wish Lloyd all the best for the future and we very much look forward to continuing our excellent partnership with the Conveyancing Academy and Charity Foundation. 

“I am sure he will continue to play a major role within the UK conveyancing community.”

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