Newton Fallowell has made an astonishing £5m in referral fees earned from conveyancing firm Move with Us over the last two decades.
Newton Fallowell opened its first office – in Grantham, Lincolnshire – in 1999 and began its partnership with Move with Us that same year.
The business, which now operates out of 36 branches in the midlands, services over 40,000 clients a year.
Newton Fallowell managing director Mark Newton said: “We have built an ever-increasing conveyancing business working with the Move with Us panel of local solicitors.
“The current market place is a maelstrom of falling fees as competition from online agents bites, and conveyancing now forms an essential part of our turnover.
“We have tried other solutions over the years, but no one else offers the joined-up thinking we get from Move with Us. Not only does it create a very successful revenue stream to help in the very challenging market, but provides our customers with a marketing leading service.”
Move with Us partners with over 200 legal firms across the country.
Donna Smith, managing director for conveyancing north at Move with Us, said: “We wish the team at Newton Fallowell a very happy 20th anniversary and look forward to being a part of their continued success.”
Newton Fallowell was acquired by Belvoir in a £6.4m deal in 2015, and Mark Newton is now executive director on Belvoir’s main board.
Comments (15)
What I would want to know in any sort of referral arrangement are
1. a seller or buyer is ‘sold’ to the conveyancer – Were they told, and the amount of cash bung changing hands disclosed?
2. if the seller already had their own conveyancer, did the estate agent sell the buyer to the conveyancer, and if so, did they tell their own selling client they did this (I would be furious if I were a seller and not told they did this to my buyer)
3. what is the pressure on the seller and buyer to use the conveyancer?
4. are the staff in the estate agent offices directed to use the conveyancer and if they do not, is there some sort of negative sanction?
5. is this referral ever brought up at the stage where a buyer makes an offer, as some sort of indication an offer would not be accepted…and if it is, does the seller know
6. if a buyer already had a conveyancer on their sale, would they be pressured to have a separate one on the purchase
The question is not about referral fee’s and its value if any, it is, was the customer disadvantaged by the referral?
Firstly that has to be one big conflict of interest since the Solicitors they recommend must be getting a large chunk of business and are certainly not going to do anything to jeopardise that arrangement. I wonder if their clients know what an important part they had to play in the growth of the Agency by being recommended not to the best Solicitors, but to the best payers?Secondly given who they are recommending, I hope these Agents never have the gall to complain about the amount of time their chains are taking to reach exchange and completion!
The rich get richer and the poor stay poor! This industry badly needs TRANSPARENCY
No idea who are the rich getting richer, and no idea who are the poor getting poorer. But a good estate agent is more than transparent with its clients and customers, in my experience it is normally those who scream for transparency that are not transparent at all.
Tip of the iceberg.
As long as there is transparency, I don’t see an issue with any kicks backs / referral fees.
But wow £5squillion squid. That’s a good referral system in place.
Put into context it’s just over £500 per month per office at its present office numbers so although it’s a great total sum, over 20 years it doesn’t hurt so much to the uneducated eye and pocket and I’m sure that companies around my way ( south east) will have earnt much more but as Peter says, it’s not a subject to be shouted about.
Nothing wrong with this arrangement if the customer/client is getting the service they wanted and deserved. Only the results of a customer/client care survey would confirm that. Publishing those results (good, bad, or indifferent) would have added some real substance to this article.
It’s quite difficult to know how to respond to this article beyond the knee-jerk, gracious, that’s a lot of money, who wouldn’t want some of THAT! I am a little surprised that an agent would disclose this information. Whilst we agree that referral fees are part of life today, it is not really dinner table talk. I am sure that your panel manager readers will proclaim this revenue stream as justification for their somewhat sorry existence but I’m not sure it is …
My experience of MWU would lead me to ask £5m p a. to cover Scotch and therapy costs.
Nice one!
It’s not £5m from Movewithus, it’s £5m (and the slice that MWU take as well) from the consumer.
And from a consumer point of view it is simply an additional and unnecessary cost. The days of referral fees are numbered, and rightly so.
Point taken, but Move With Us do offer some perks to the customer for going through them rather than direct to the solicitors, such as no sale no fee legal fees etc.
This press release will wonders for those battling against referral fees.