Conveyancing Services Market

Abstract

The European Commission has been working to promote reform and modernisation of restrictive regulation in the professional services area since 2002. This underlines wide disparities in levels of regulation across the EU and reveals links between excessive regulation and economic inefficiency. Whilst the Commission is not opposed to all regulation of professional services as there are legitimate arguments in favour of certain regulations in this area e.g. to protect consumer interests or safeguard the independence and integrity of a profession, the Commission argues that restrictive regulation needs to meet a strict proportionality test. This means that it is only justified if it serves a clearly defined public interest goal, is objectively suitable to obtain that goal and is the means least restrictive of competition to achieve this goal3. This is because such regulations eliminate or limit competition between service providers and thus reduce the incentives for professionals to work cost-efficiently, lower prices, increase quality or offer innovative services. However, a considerable part of current professional regulation does not meet this test. The study consists of a general legal part, an economic part and case studies on four countries (England and Wales, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden), representing different regulatory systems. The final conclusions summarise the key findings of the study and develop some recommendations on de-regulation and reform of conveyancing services regulation with a view to promoting greater choice and the delivery of more cost-effective legal services in conveyancing. Published alongside this study are a set of "country fiches", which set out key legal and economic findings. These served as a source of information for the study, although other sources have also been drawn on.

Keywords: regulation, competition, conveyancing service, lawyers, notaries, property rights, real estate, transaction costs

JEL Classification: K11, K12