Should only qualified legal practitioners be allowed to practise as conveyancers?



The fifteen person task team appointed by the Minister of Justice to submit its recommendations for the final draft of the Legal Practices Bill will be recommending that only qualified legal practitioners be allowed to practise as conveyancers. The team, which recently convened in Pretoria to receive submissions from interested parties, agreed unanimously against the inclusion of "licensed conveyancers" in the bill, says team member and SA Law Society representative Roger Green. The Chief Registrar of Deeds who made a strong plea that the integrity of the existing system be maintained also supported this view. The majority view of the task team was against the submission by a spokesman of the banks that non-legal firms be allowed to employ in-house conveyancers. Green says the team's view on the proposal was that a relaxation from the current system would mean that the public would be subjected to dealing direct with corporate entities without the independent advice of an attorney. The team believed such a move was not in the public interest. Green, who is strongly against deregulation of the conveyancing profession, was particularly heartened by the team's unanimous agreement that only attorneys be allowed to practice as conveyancers. His understanding of the team's role in assisting in drafting of the bill was that the minister would be guided by its unanimous recommendations or those with a "fair degree of consensus." If the team was unable to reach a consensus on an issue then both views were to be submitted to the minister for his final decision. Corporate lawyers also made a submission to the team urging deregulation while estate agents had submitted a letter recommending they be allowed to do conveyancing. The final draft of the bill is to be submitted to the minister in October.