Do I have an issue with Veyo No, well not with the portal itself because it doesn't yet appear to exist. However, I do have an issue with some of the team behind Veyo. For the last 12 months and more they have been making some claims that quite frankly have not been substantiated.
They have been caught out time and time again and yet continue with their creative claims, inventive marketing and clever PR.
For some time they say they have been talking (with positive responses), to lenders, case management suppliers, estate agents and others about Veyo. Yet it would appear that any meaningful discussions have only recently taken place. And even now, positive responses are few and far between.
As the Law Society (an institution of some repute) owns 60% of the company that is building Veyo you would expect any claims to be clear and factual. In my opinion, the sentence below, taken from yesterday's EAT article is neither clear, nor factual:
Some 47 per cent of conveyancing firms are on board, ranging from volume conveyancers to sole practitioners.
How can ANY firm be on board' As far as I am aware, no there T & Cs available, no contracts available and no firms have yet been verified.
Over the last few days I have carried out a survey of the Bold Legal Group's member firms. I have had 195 responses. The good news for Veyo is that it seems that registrations have gone up from their publicised 47% to just over 50%. 101 of the firms who responded have registered their interest.
I think that is where the good news ends though.
94 firms have not registered an interest. More importantly only two firms out of the 195 have any intention, at the moment, of using Veyo.
The vast majority of firms have only registered in order to:
Keep themselves in the loop
Receive updates
A number have registered and received no contact and one couldn't make the registration process work. For the majority this is nothing more than a wait and see exercise.
Within the last few days I have been told (amongst other things):
Search providers are not yet integrated
Land Registry is not yet integrated
HMRC is not yet integrated
Also not available is integration with CMS and for that there is no availability date because other than preliminary talks and at Veyo's request the real discussion cannot even start until after their launch
No estate agent access will be available until late summer
No client access will be available until summer
Training - will be online only, by video
Does any of this really matter, probably not if Veyo eventually delivers on its claims What I don't want estate agents to do though is believe the marketing puff and register their interest and then put pressure on their conveyancers to sign up. That could backfire and cause the conveyancer more time, effort and stress than they already have. I suggest that estate agents talk to their conveyancer contacts and ask them if they have seen a full Veyo demonstration and ask them if it is worth signing up.
Qualification: The Commercial director of Veyo, Stefanie van den Haak, maintains that some of the bullet points listed above are incorrect. It seems there may have been a misunderstanding between the Veyo Sales Executive and the Partner of my member firm. I have not yet been told which bullet points may be incorrect. When/if I am, I will post a comment accordingly. Of course Ms van den Haak may well post her own comment in the meantime.
*Rob Hailstone is founder of the Bold Legal Group
.png)
Comments