Stockport-based conveyancing practice, O’Neill Patient LLP (ONP), has completed the purchase of Cavendish Legal Group.
This is understood to be the first of what will be a number of acquisitions of property focused law firms by the ONP Group.
ONP specialises in conveyancing services for residential and commercial sale, purchase, remortgage and lease extensions.
Cavendish Legal Group will keep its brand name.
Adam Forshaw, managing director of ONP:
“Cavendish Legal makes a great addition to our group and provides clients with increased choice and a larger reach across the UK.
“Cavendish has a strong group of partners and is well known for its premium service.
“Our joint management teams will be looking to accelerate growth.
“We will also look to acquire other legal firms that could add value to our group.”
Alexis Brassey, senior director of Cavendish Legal Group said:
“We are excited to be a part of the ONP Group and we are looking forward to a bright future of significant expansion and growth while continuing to provide the exemplary service that we have become renowned for.”
Comments (4)
Conveyancers have come back to business and are offering exactly the same mediocre service as they did 16 weeks ago – such a missed oppoirtunity.
But estate agents – I have even more respect fot them now – have shown themselves in such a superb light for two reasons:
1. they have not rushed people into selling and buying but are taking Covid-19 steps so seriously, and methodically
2. over and over again different estate agents are saying rubbish conveyancing is bad for their business, and they are ditching the high cash bung paying outfits, who lead to bad social media/online reviews, and instead are seeking out and recommending good conveyancing
If you are a good conveyancing firm, you can expect to do well, as there is a shift with estate agents, who are catching up the pubic who already shifted and who demand quality conveyancers – to get it right.
Another dark day for the future of conveyancing. Not to mention for the poor old consumer who as usual has been forgotten in all this.
I have read in the press release “ONP stressed how its “state-of-the-art technology” made it “amongst the most efficient conveyancers in the industry, providing innovation, speed and the highest quality service”. Yet ask any experienced conveyancer in the profession and that is not the firm they will recognise. Along with about twenty to thirty others they are one of those outfits everyone loves to hate, a classic example of the new breed of firm who put profit before customer service. Proof positive, along with plenty of others, that technology is most certainly not the way forward. You do sometimes wonder how much due diligence is done by buyers before a transaction like this is completed?
Unfortunately with the backing of the Private Equity profit hunters it seems these firms will only increase and the money they have to tempt introducers to use them means the level playing field has long since disappeared, and firms relying on producing a good quality of expertise and professionalism for their clients have even less chance of competing.
The last recession saw many experienced conveyancers of my generation leave the profession. I feel that this recession may have the same effect, since an announcement like this can only dishearten, not to mention threaten, those conveyancers like myself whose old fashioned values and standards now seem anathema to the profession. Which some, in betraying their real outlook, dare to call an industry anyway.
Indeed I myself made the decision to retire some months and looking at what has been happening to the profession over recent months and today I now feel that decision is justified. To me there is no longer a place for experience, professionalism and expertise, let alone customer service. I love this job but the race to the bottom no longer makes it enjoyable, and I despair of where conveyancing is heading with the lack of leadership in the profession.
The people I feel really sorry for are the house sellers and buyers completely forgotten by a business decision like this and who will be the losers in the long term as the factories proliferate and technology attempts to replace the competent conveyancer.
One ill patient? 🙂
Heaven help us…
The dealings I have had with ONP the last thing we need is them expanding.
I hope the service improves by learning from others they merge with.