Seller's Legal Pack: Motion
Seanad Éireann — 2026-01-27
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Niall Collins (FF), Limerick County

I am pleased to have the opportunity this evening to participate in the debate on this important issue on behalf of the Government and to thank my colleague, Senator Anne Rabbitte, for moving the Government's amendment to that of the Independent group of Senators. Notwithstanding this, I want to acknowledge the work undertaken by Senator McCarthy and the Independent group of Senators in tabling a motion on this matter, as we know that many aspects of the conveyancing process in Ireland are inefficient and improvements are required in the interests of all participants.
At the outset, I believe that it is important to emphasise our commitment to improving efficiency and reducing costs in the process of buying and selling property. A well-functioning and efficient property market that benefits both buyers and sellers is required and to achieve this it is important that we reduce delays and remove unnecessary red tape from the conveyancing process. This is acknowledged in the programme for Government setting an eight-week conveyancing target for the legal profession.
The Government has proposed an amendment today as it is important to recognise that this is a multifaceted challenge, which this Government has long been committed to addressing. This debate provides me with a welcome opportunity to report to Seanad Éireann on the significant work that is being undertaken to streamline property conveyancing in line with the national target of an eight-week turnaround, particularly since the original Bill was referred to the select committee in late 2024.
As many of the Senators will be aware, in pursuit of delivering the Housing for All action plan published in November 2023, an expert group on conveyancing and probate was convened by the then Taoiseach in December 2023. This expert group was established to review conveyancing and probate processes in Ireland from a user perspective and recommend changes implementable quickly and easily to reduce costs and delays for home purchasers. The group of eight members, with a mix of expertise and perspectives, met with a range of stakeholders and representative organisations. A major objective underpinning the group’s work was to maximise the available housing stock by avoiding having homes lying empty because they are caught in lengthy and inefficient conveyancing or probate transactions. I assure Senators that the Government remains fully committed to this goal.
The report of the expert group on conveyancing and probate was approved by the Government in July 2024. Importantly, the Government also approved the establishment of a conveyancing and probate implementation group tasked with beginning the implementation of short-term recommendations, as well as developing a detailed programme, including assigning ownership and committed timelines to implement the full set of recommendations from the expert group. This is particularly important because, since its establishment, the independently chaired implementation group has progressed a number of very important workstreams.
Composed of a range of key stakeholders, including professionals, industry bodies such as the Institute of Professional Auctioneers and Valuers, and Government agencies and Departments, the group has already made significant progress on many measures. These include, first, the development of a public information pack to improve knowledge of the process, minimise delays and equip home buyers with the information required to engage efficiently with professional conveyancing services. This is now available on the gov.ie website to ensure maximum accessibility. Second, a best practice charter has been created, setting out principles of best practice for the main professions involved in the delivery of conveyancing services. It sets out key principles of best practice for estate agents and solicitors relating to conveyancing, covering three key areas, namely, advice to seller clients, expediency, efficiency and avoidance of unnecessary delays, and accountability. Third, an initial baseline survey was run by the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, CCPC, to gauge the experience of consumers in the conveyancing process. Fourth, a revised consumer protection code has been published by the Central Bank, requiring banks, retail credit firms and credit servicing firms to provide title deeds within ten working days of a request. Fifth, options have been brought forward to get more titles registered in the Land Registry more quickly and to expedite the registration of properties and the transfer of deeds. Sixth, legislation will be prepared later in the year to support the increased use of statements of truth to replace certain hard copy affidavits or statutory declarations in the conveyancing process. Seventh, greater efficiencies in response times have been achieved for information requests from the various stakeholders. Eighth, the development of a proposal for a national e-conveyancing system. Ninth, and finally, the Courts Service is rolling out a reform programme to the probate process, which has already seen significant reduction in processing times, including the implementation of eProbate on a pilot basis.
All these measures reflect how the group is looking at every aspect of the conveyancing process to find efficiencies and address bottlenecks wherever possible. I very much welcome the progress made by the implementation group as it works towards achieving an eight-week conveyancing target. This is important work, which will mean fewer costs and delays for home buyers, and more homes being made available efficiently on the market.
I assure the Senators that both the expert group and the implementation group have fully considered the various issues that can either collapse or significantly delay the conveyancing process. The expert group received a briefing regarding the Seller's Legal Pack for Property Buyers Bill 2021 and considered the matter fully. The group acknowledged that the Bill was proposed to help deal with a serious issue that could cause significant delays in conveyancing processes relating to failures to pull necessary information and documentation sufficiently early in a conveyancing process. The group agreed that action needed to be taken to ensure that much more was done regarding the collection of information, necessary certifications, title deeds and so on early in a sale process and that this was at the earliest point of engagement with the estate agent and vendor’s solicitor. This work is core to both groups' objectives and achievements to date. The expert group was also made aware of the experience in England and Wales when a statutory regime, similar to that proposed by the Seller's Legal Pack for Property Buyers Bill 2021, was repealed, in part due to a perception that it was causing unduly high upfront costs for sellers and that properties were being held back from the market. At the same time, the group was also aware of a more positive outcome of legislation with similar effects in Scotland.
As acknowledged by the Independent Senators' motion itself, the Department of justice and the expert group regard the seller's legal pack Bill as having some difficulties. These were discussed during the detailed scrutiny undertaken by the justice committee. Suffice to say, having carefully considered the options available, the expert group on conveyancing and probate concluded that a number of measures should be tried first before going down the legislative route. Furthermore, the implementation group has given further consideration to these issues and concluded that: efforts should be aimed at mechanisms to ensure that a key essential baseline of information on properties for sale is collected at the pre-sale stage; that there should be a means of preventing a property from going to market or going to sale agreed or contract stage unless this information has been collected; and that the three parties likely to have most control in ensuring that the necessary information is collected are the vendors, the estate agents and the vendors’ solicitors.
The implementation group has identified nine specific categories of pre-sale information that, if not collected early in a conveyancing process, are more likely to cause delays beyond the target of an eight-week conveyancing process. Several options, with varying degrees of enforceability, were considered with a view to delivering better information at the earliest stage in the conveyancing process. These included legislation, regulation and best practice codes.
Arising from these discussions, it was agreed that the two relevant regulatory bodies, those being, the Property Services Regulatory Authority and the Legal Services Regulatory Authority, would embark on developing regulatory codes of practice, within the measures already provided for in their respective governing legislation, for their regulated practitioners. The intention is that codes of practice would be binding on both solicitors and property services professionals, but the enforcement measures and the implications differ slightly in their respective governing legislation. These codes of practice will deal with key topics, such as making it obligatory for the client to be formally advised of the necessary information to be collected at an early stage, that failure to collect this information is likely to result in significant delays in the conveyancing process, and that the estate agent advises the vendor to engage a solicitor as early as possible in the process.
I understand that the development of these codes is currently ongoing with intensive engagement between the PSRA, LSRA and the Law Society. It is expected that this approach, coupled with other measures implemented by the group, will result in greater efficiency and overall improvement in the conveyancing process.
I again thank Senator McCarthy and the Independent Group for bringing forward the motion. While the Government cannot support it, it has provided me with an opportunity to outline the work undertaken by the interdepartmental implementation group on conveyancing and probate, which is progressing many of the main issues of concern, including the principles contained in the seller's legal pack Bill. It is clear that good progress has been made in respect of this work. There are many advantages to this approach of establishing codes of practice and progressing many matters on a non-statutory footing.
Notwithstanding the speed with which the measures can be progressed, they also provide in-built flexibility in terms of being able to quickly adjust to any issues of concern that may arise. It is therefore the Government’s intention that this work continues with the input of the relevant stakeholders and representatives from the various bodies. I assure the Independent Group that it is also intended that this area is kept under review. If the implementation of codes of practice does not result in the efficiencies expected, the legislative route will be revisited in the future.

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Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-01-27/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:33+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-27