Why move to a specialist regulator?

8 April, 2025

Switching regulators is something many firms consider but often shy away from. It can be perceived as being difficult and lengthy and firms worry about continuation of service for their clients and from their insurer.

One firm who has made the switch, eight years ago as a trailblazer, is Nottinghamshire’s Fidler & Pepper. We spoke to one of the firm’s directors, and chief technology officer, Mark Slade, about why switching regulators was one of the best moves the firm has made.

“I qualified as a solicitor in 1989 with Fidler & Pepper and soon specialised in conveyancing. Unusually, the firm had a client management system (CMS), which back then in 1989 seemed very forward thinking. It intrigued me and it just so happened that the head of one of the conveyancing teams left soon after I joined, a replacement was needed, and so after a chat with the managing partner I took up a role in conveyancing. That was the start of me becoming more and more involved in the tech side of things and where I found out that I was a coder at heart! I learnt how to customise the CMS, and that was my path through the next two decades.  

“I became managing partner in 2004 and then we converted to a limited company in 2014. I stepped down as CEO last year and am now the CTO. My brother has filled my shoes, as our current CEO.

“When I did day to day conveyancing, I enjoyed letting people know that they would have the house of their dreams, prior to that I’d done some work in matrimonial law, where, generally speaking, none of your clients are happy so it was refreshing to come to conveyancing where clients were more likely to be upbeat and excited.

“The role of the conveyancer has changed significantly over the last 20 years though, which has placed more pressure on conveyancing firms. Firstly, conveyancing takes longer than anyone wants it to, clients and conveyancers alike. Secondly, the considerable expansion in terms of increased checks, such as AML. When I first started out there weren’t even environmental checks, now the role is very different. And this is where I am passionate about supporting staff and clients. I enjoy putting systems in place that give a better service and make life easier for all to have a better experience of the conveyancing process.

“These days, you have to understand how important it is to keep evolving your business to meet changing needs. As a business, we do fairly high volumes in terms of transactional and remortgage work. Saving a minute here and there is valuable to us and it adds up. My role is to support our staff, by looking at our processes – seeing what we can do to improve efficiency such as integrating with a third party or digitising the forms we use.

“Similarly, like all good businesses we keep everything under review and that includes regulation. In 2018 we decided that our existing regulation – under the SRA – wasn’t working for us, we felt unsupported and so we made the decision to move into CLC regulation.

“In terms of the process of switching, the actual move was painless. We had been worried about being maintained on lenders panels, which I think is a common misconception, and what a lot of people panic about, but in reality it wasn’t a problem at all. We spoke to the lenders in advance, explained the reasoning behind the change and thereafter it was seamless. It helps that you are able to cover most of the lenders by dealing with LMS, Lender Exchange or Smoove – who each manage their own panels. Our bank kept us with the same client account so there weren’t any issues there either. As long as you approach these things methodically, most lenders these days don’t panic or treat you with suspicion, as a number of firms have previously switched. “

“We did find that our insurance premiums increased, but this coincided with us having grown substantially. For the immediate period after the conversion you might have to get run-off insurance for your work under your previous regulator, for us that meant that initially some of the CLC policies weren’t open to us, but once that run-off period had expired it was a lot easier. It can be worth seeing if you can place that run-off risk on its own so you are then shopping for a ‘vanilla’ CLC policy for your ongoing work. Our insurance premiums are now at a level we would expect, and we have an excellent relationship with our insurers. “

“I would absolutely recommend other firms to make the switch into CLC regulation. They are a sensible and proportionate regulator. If you’re doing something wrong, you’ll get pulled up and they’ll work with you to explain and ensure you correct the issue. It’s been highly collaborative and not in the least bit adversarial – a very common sense approach, which is in stark contrast to what we previously experienced. “

“I suppose that it helps that they’re not trying to regulate firms of hugely varying sectors and risk profiles. CLC is solely conveyancers and probate practitioners, and they’re set up for that. We’ve found it incredibly valuable to have a specialist regulator.”