Money laundering

Though conveyancers have been at the sharp end of money laundering activity to date, it seems that litigators are now being targeted as well

Until now, it was thought that litigation was a less fertile area for laundering the proceeds of crime than conveyancing was: fraudsters had been setting up spurious property transactions in order to launder money, while litigation was considered a less risky area of law

Because conveyancers have become more and more strict over their anti-money laundering procedures, the criminals are apparently now setting up spurious debt collection and similar claims, in order to launder their money through lawyers' firms

As a result, litigation solicitors will need to be as alert as conveyancers have become, to spot signs of suspicious activities and report them where appropriate

How soon will this apply to probate and matrimonial lawyers, too?

April Fool giveaway

It's my birthday in April, so I'm giving a 10% discount on all new legal work where I receive (and accept)instructions in April 2010 - you need to quote "promo code April Fool" when giving the instructions (on the authority form, in the case of new clients) in order to qualify, so don't forget

Another school governor monitoring visit

I have carried out another monitoring visit, this time focusing on "Community Cohesion", which is a formal way of saying, "We all have to get along together, so play nicely" - I understate for effect, of course, but it does seem to require a lot of input for something that, in 90% of schools, must be taught and experienced automatically anyway. Ah, well, it ticks some boxes ...

School monitoring visit

In my capacity as a governor of the Infant School in Tenterden, I today paid a monitoring visit to the school

It is always a delight visiting the school: all the children are well-behaved, happy and hard-working, and they really seem to thrive in the school's positive atmosphere; It makes me quite proud to be a small part of that success

My visit focused on the "drop-off club" in the mornings - which allows parents to drop off their children for supervised play before school normally starts, so that the parents can get off to work or whatever - and the role of the newly-appointed Family Liaison Officer. Both are aspects of the "Extended Schools" initiative, which tries to get schools more closely involved in their local communities.

On the basis of my visit today, both the drop-off club and the FLO are valued by parents, and (certainly in the case of the drop-off club) by the children who took part as well.

Yet more evidence, if needed, that the school is very successful

Tenterden accountants get it together

Two firms of accoutants with offices in Tenterden are to merge with effect from April Fools' Day (1 April 2010)

Phipps & Co, who also have offices in Rye, will merge with Gibbons Mannington, who also have offices in Rye (and in Bexhill as well)

As Phipps & Co have only relatively recently returned to Tenterden, re-absorbing the Day Peto & Co practice that had previously spun off from them, this merger seems to indicate that they are actively managing their future - as one would expect from good accountants!

Good luck to them in their latest phase of development

Computer screens should be at eye level? - not necessarily

One of the good results of my routine eye test today is a return to a comfortable working environment

About a year ago, a health and safety expert berated me for having my computer screen below eye level - bad for my posture, apparently

Trustingly, I put the screen on a stand and suffered the up-and-down head motion of non-touch typing and screen checking.

On the basis of advice today, bearing in mind that I have specs with vari-focal lenses, I have removed the stand - and things are soooo much better

I can now type and read the screen without too much effort and hope that I will be less tired at the end of the working day

Moral: the H&S experts do not know everything

Referral fees - are they actively destructive?

We are currently finding the firms that rely heavily on estate agent referrals are incredibly slow - it can take literally weeks to get a draft contract out of them, and on more than one occasion we have offered to draft the contract for them, based on the information in the Home Information Packs

Assuming they are not being lazy or incredibly incompentent (though ... - no, don't go there!) I can only think they are victims of their own successful marketing; in other words, that the referring agents are so keen to get a couple of hundred quid referral fee - guaranteed and, presumably, up front - that they would rather refer the case to someone who does not actually have the resources to handle the work, rather than lose the referral fee

How this can conceivably be in the best interests of their client, the seller, is beyond me. It is also not in the interests of the buyer or the housing market generally

If (and it is a big "If") my limited, recent experience is widespread, and if (another big "If") the reason is as I have surmised, this, surely, provides very strong support for those who wish to ban referral fees, at least where they are being used in such an unsophisticated way as to distort the whole market

Have any other conveyancers had similar experiences?