Convey Group Managing Director Lloyd Davies and his band of charity walkers – the Mindstep Trekkers – have raised well over £16,000 for Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) despite the official walk they were due to take part in being cancelled.

They were ready to take on the annual 25k Thames Bridge Challenge in aid of GOSH spanning some of London’s most iconic bridges but the challenge had to be postponed because of the death of her Majesty the Queen and subsequent events in London.

Undeterred and determined to fulfil their sponsorship pledges, the group decided to take on the same distance on home turf in Wales, successfully completing 25k cross country across some tough terrain.

Together with funds raised by the Convey Group team and their clients through the Conveyancing Foundation’s Charity Lotto, an impressive total of £16,840 has now been donated from the walk to GOSH, which will go towards the care of sick children at the world-famous paediatric hospital.

Lloyd, who is also chairman of the Conveyancing Foundation, and the Mindstep Trekkers have now successfully raised tens of thousands of pounds for charities in Wales and around the UK through a series of challenges including walking the length of Offa’s Dyke, which spans the England-Wales border.

Lloyd commented: “We are so pleased to raise much-needed funds for so many charities, especially GOSH.

“I would like to thank the Convey Group team for such hard work and commitment to supporting the Conveyancing Foundation and the Charity Lotto and thank our clients who have supported the Charity Lotto.

“Without them all, it would be impossible to support so many wonderful charities.”

Three new senior appointments over the summer have continued to strengthen the knowledge and expertise of our teams across the Convey Group as the business grows ahead of the launch of our new Swansea office. 

Janine Edwards joined Convey Law as a Legal Director at the end of June and is an extremely experienced property lawyer, having previously headed commercial and residential property departments at three legal businesses. A former Modern Law Conveyancer of the Year, Janine will work closely with the senior management team to support and develop the conveyancing department. 

In July, Craig Whiting joined the company as Head of Training and Development at the Conveyancing Academy. He has worked with both private and public training providers in different management roles. His experience has primarily been within the apprenticeship provision for over 10 years. 

Liza Carr joined Convey Law in late August as HR Manager. Liza is a Chartered CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel Development) HR professional with over 20 years’ experience gained from both the public and private sector in a range of industries including Financial Services, IT, and Manufacturing.  Liza will support the day-to-day HR function of the Convey Group and work closely with the senior leadership team. 

It was back to school for Newport-based Your Conveyancing Services’s Director of IT when he returned to his old school in Pontypool to donate 40 much-needed laptops. 

Joe Norris, who attended St Alban’s RC School, was delighted to meet children and some of his old teachers when he returned to make the donation of the reconditioned Chromebooks to aid learning development at the school. 

He said: “It was great to be back and meet some of my old teachers, headmaster Stephen Lord and a number of the current teachers and pupils.”  

He added: “We need to continually update our equipment at Your Conveyancing Services because of the nature of our business as an online conveyancing practice. We were keen to donate some of the Chromebooks our staff use which are still in excellent condition to somewhere which would really benefit.  

“We already had links with the school and we contacted them to offer the Chromebooks which we have wiped and cleaned ready for the pupils to use. I was delighted to go along and officially donate them on behalf of Your Conveyancing Services.” 

Headteacher Stephen Lord said: “We are really grateful for this generous donation. We will be sharing these Chromebooks with some of our most vulnerable pupils to help them access their studies and I know they will make a real difference and be very beneficial to them. 

“It was also a pleasure for me and for the pupils to meet Joe, a former pupil, and see how well he is doing. It is always an inspiration for current pupils to see what pupils have gone on to achieve after leaving St Alban’s.” 

Your Conveyancing Services Managing Director Lloyd Davies said: “We are always keen to ensure that computer equipment is recycled where it can be to aid our local communities. We have previously donated laptops to a youth centre in South Wales so this is our second recent donation.  

“I am delighted they are going to be used by pupils who really need them to help their education.” 

Earlier this year, The Conveyancing Foundation, the not-for-profit charitable arm of the Convey Group, helped to raise £25,000 for a new health and wellbeing suite at St Alban’s after a group trek by the ‘Mindstep Trekkers’ along Offa’s Dyke national trail. 

Headteacher Mr Lord added: “The continued support of Your Conveyancing Services to St Alban’s is very humbling and very much appreciated.” 

Convey Law Managing Director Lloyd Davies has joined Dads, family and friends of Ty Hafan Children’s Hospice – the ‘Ty Hafan Dads’ – in a series of gruelling challenges to raise vital funds for the South Wales-based centre’s valuable work in looking after seriously ill children and young people. 

Earlier this year, he joined the group climbing the Welsh Three Peaks and then he took part  in the final 53 mile cycling leg of their headline-hitting ‘Ten in Taff challenge’ in July. 

The fathers of children supported by Ty Hafan completed the extreme Ten in Taff challenge, climbing ten of the highest mountains in Wales in an incredible two days followed by the bike ride from Brecon to Cardiff. They completed the entire challenge in just over 55 hours. 

Lloyd has spearheaded many fundraising events for Ty Hafan and together with funds raised by Convey Law through the Conveyancing Foundation’s innovative Charity Lotto, he has donated over £375,000 to Ty Hafan in the last decade. 

He was made Ty Hafan’s first Corporate Ambassador in 2014 in recognition of his dedicated support for the hospice and his extensive charity fundraising. 

Conveyancing and legal experts have spoken out about the stresses and strains facing those working in the property and legal conveyancing world as we move out of the Pandemic in The Conveyancing Foundation’s latest ‘Be Kind We Care’ webinar. 

Speaking at the webinar to mark Stress Awareness Month, Conveyancing Foundation chairman Lloyd Davies said that while relationships had improved between conveyancers and estate agents since Pandemic days, it was the opposite for clients who could often be “less understanding and more demanding” with their behaviour “fuelled by the very buoyant property market”. 

Lloyd, also Managing Director of Convey Law, said: “Clients’ behaviour during the Pandemic was quite good in many respects. They were quite patient because they understood the problems we had. I think less so this year.  

“It just seems that they are now very, very demanding which is putting a lot of pressure on our teams. That again is fuelled by the very buoyant property market. People are very impatient now because they know that house prices are going up and they may get gazumped so there is very little tolerance in the market which is putting a lot of pressure on all conveyancers.” 

Meanwhile, Lloyd said that he believed the ‘Be Kind We Care’ campaign launched by the not-for-profit Conveyancing Foundation during the Pandemic, prompted by growing reports of aggressive professional behaviour in the property, conveyancing and legal sectors, had encouraged many working in those industries to consider and manage their dealings with each other to ensure more kindness: 

“I believe that relationships with others in the property world like estate agents and introducers of business have become a lot better. They are not quite as aggressive and are far more understanding of our predicament as conveyancers which is a good thing. Of course, it’s also all down to supply and demand: if they are nasty to us, we don’t work for them! It’s quid pro quo!   

“We do think that we are raising standards with ‘Be Kind We Care’ and I hope everyone can keep going in that respect. It is so important to be nice and pleasant to each other in terms of stress. A nasty comment can ruin someone’s day. I also believe that employers do understand that if they don’t treat their staff well, they will walk.” 

Lloyd also said conveyancing was still very busy in the aftermath of the Pandemic and living through a period of “peaks and troughs”, explaining: 

“We are in a little bit of a situation in the conveyancing world. The industry has had a very busy and difficult time with people working from home but also the stresses within our environments with the SDLT deadlines which gave us false set of waves throughout last year leading up to September was hugely stressful.  

“I don’t think they have quite gone away and certainly the volume of instructions coming through is quite considerable and managing capacity and the amount of work is an important factor. We had a dip in completions at the beginning of the year but we were back to a high at the end of last month. We are living through a series of peaks and troughs and we need a more level playing field!” 

Webinar host LawCare Chief Executive Elizabeth Rimmer said managing the expectations of clients whose transaction was probably “the biggest thing going on in their lives” while conveyancers might be dealing with 100 transactions was key: 

“An understanding of why people might be behaving in a certain way is vital,” she stressed. 

Jason Bull, a mentor at Agents Together and Chief Operating Officer of easyproperty.com, said estate agents, solicitors and conveyancers had “a very similar job dealing with people with high stress and high anxiety levels which extends into our staff”, and it was “valuable” to hear each other’s viewpoints. 

He said tolerance in dealing with each other was “all down to education”, adding: 

“I am pleased to hear that estate agents are becoming more tolerant. Sometimes problems can arise when agents don’t understand where their job ends and where the conveyancer’s job begins. I have seen agents interfering with a conveyancer’s job and that just adds extra time, extra complaints and layers of conflict and yet we share the same problems and by talking to each other, we can solve an awful lot of them.” 

He said: “I work at a high level in Agents Together and at an estate agency so it is useful to consider the boundaries between the role of a conveyancer and an agent but also how we manage boundaries in a hybrid world. People are more depleted than they normally are. Some people came out of the Pandemic relatively unscathed while others experienced illness or even bereavement. Some people found it difficult working from home while others enjoyed it. One size does not fit all.” 

Jason welcomed increased discussion on mental health and wellbeing in the property industry, and said to some extent this had “previously been a taboo subject”, adding: 

“Estate agency has been a macho, ego-driven environment but charities have opened the door to discussing stress and mental health and wellbeing. If worries, doubts and concerns are not discussed, they manifest.” 

Jason said his own agency had looked at ways of reducing stress and had now made a pledge to ensure staff only sent emails during working hours: 

“Emails sent out of working hours bleed into someone’s time and bleeds into being anxious after hours,” he commented. 

Hannah Beko, a partner at Gunnercooke llp and a mental health trainer, said that while there was more discussion about mental health issues and more resources than ever before – “what is out there is not reducing numbers”. 

She shared tips on stress and burnout, emphasising the importance of keeping an eye on colleagues and on changes in behaviour in them and in ourselves. 

She said: “There’s a lot of positives in terms of discussion and support but we are still at the tip of the iceberg and we need to be more alive to that.” 

Leading legal conveyancing practice Convey Law has been recognised for delivering outstanding customer service to its clients and shortlisted for two awards at the ‘Oscars’ of the property world: the ESTAS – the Estate Agent of the Year Awards, the largest awards for the UK residential property industry. 

Convey, based in Newport South Wales, has been shortlisted for the national Best Conveyancer Group of the Year Award and for the Regional Award for Wales. 

Convey has also attained the ESTAS newly-introduced ‘Standard of Excellence’ to make it onto the shortlist of the top 600 conveyancers, estate agents and mortgage brokers for customer service in the whole of the UK. 

The awards are powered by the ESTAS online customer review platform, which enables property professionals to demonstrate the customer service standards they deliver for their clients. ESTAS reviews can only be completed at the end of the property transaction and a strict verification process ensures reviews are genuine.  This year’s shortlist has been calculated following the evaluation of 660,000 client reviews. 

The ESTAS “Standard of Excellence” kitemark has been introduced for the first time by ESTAS to help firms promote their service standards, said Ben Marley Commercial Director at ESTAS. 

“Competition to reach the shortlist is getting tougher and tougher as we attract more and more firms across agency, conveyancing, mortgage broker and supplier sectors.  So – for the first time – we have introduced the ESTAS Standard of Excellence which firms must attain to make the shortlist,” he said. 

“Achieving The ESTAS Standard of Excellence is a service kite mark which every firm on the shortlist should be extremely proud of. ESTAS reviews are unique because they must be completed at the end of the moving experience ensuring they provide a true reflection of the overall service received and therefore deliver a powerful marketing message to future customers.” 

In 2021, Convey Law scooped three top ESTAS awards – the Regional Award for Wales and the Bronze Award in the National Conveyancing Group of the Year Award – as well as Best in County for Newport – and is hoping to repeat its winning formula. 

Convey Law Managing Director Lloyd Davies said:  

“The ESTAS Awards are extremely well-thought of in the industry because they directly relate to a company’s performance day in day out so a real indicator of how well we have done. We are therefore very proud to be shortlisted again in 2022 after winning three ESTAS awards in 2021 and proud to have attained the inaugural ESTAS Standard of Excellence kitemark.  

“The fact that the awards represent outstanding customer service means they can be directly attributed to the conveyancers and other property professionals across the UK who have worked so hard for their clients in very challenging circumstances in recent years.  

“These professionals have been directly rewarded by their satisfied clients who have gone onto the ESTAS platform at the end of their transactions to praise the excellent service they have received. There can be no better commendation than this so we are extremely pleased to be shortlisted.” 

In the last year, Convey Law has also been named Medium Employer of the Year at the Welsh Government’s prestigious Apprenticeship Awards, and currently has a record 158 employees, aided by its training and apprenticeships programme, and a total record workforce of 178 including its regular consultants. 

Lloyd Davies said: “We have continued to take on and train many new apprentices in 2021 and 2022 and we also plan to open new offices in Cardiff and Swansea this year.  

“The strength of the business and its continued growth will also enable our specialist affiliate Convey365IT to bring to market our ground-breaking IT case management system for the conveyancing industry later this year which will mark a huge landmark for us. We look forward to bringing home more awards at the ESTAS ceremony later this year!” 

The 19th annual ESTAS, sponsored by Coadjute, will take place on 14 October 2021, hosted by “Location Location Location” property expert Phil Spencer in front of an estimated 1200-strong audience at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London.  

Phil Spencer said: “The ESTAS Awards are based on real feedback, from real clients experiencing real service so they provide genuine proof of the service levels that a firm is delivering to clients. Now more than ever, high-quality customer service is crucial if homemovers are going to realise their dream of getting the property they set their hearts on.”