Years ago, the department of transport spent millions of pounds widening the M40 and merely ended up relocating traffic jams a few miles down the road from Greenford into west London. It was fundamentally a good idea, but in reality, merely helped a few people get into London more quickly outside the busiest periods.
For people buying and selling properties, the experience can be very similar to sitting in lines of traffic - aggravating, slow and completely unpredictable.
That's why, in theory, the Law's Society's latest attempt to speed up conveyancing with its Veyo conveyancing project, whose logo is an orange bunny, is laudable and well-intentioned.
Sadly, in our opinion, it is doomed to fail and will join a growing list of failed projects designed to improve the conveyancing process.
The previous government tried to help with Home Information Packs, which even the most cynical estate agents now recognise was a good idea, undermined by poor implementation and party politics.
The Land Registry tried with their "econveyancing" project of centralising transactions, which was very sensible as they control the transactional data, but sadly, again, was let down by delays and inertia.
Whilst we salute the Law Society's gallant efforts to try and help their fee-paying members like us, we feel that maybe they should have talked to someone first before embarking on this exercise in futility.
There are fundamental problems with chains and keeping systems updated that they don't seem to have taken into account.
Unless everyone in a chain is using the same system, then, like today, transactions will only be able to move at the pace of the slowest element. If only a couple of law firms in a chain are using Veyo, the benefits will be extremely limited. This means that whilst it may well speed up certain elements of communication, overall, it will have minimal impact on overall transaction times.
Secondly, given that most lawyers are already struggling to keep their internal case management systems updated, if they are expected to keep another system updated as well, the chances seem slim at best. Any direct integration between case management systems will lag at least six months behind the launch, by which time, its credibility will be sorely tested.
If Veyo ever does see the light of day, the reality will be a system with incomplete data from only part of a chain, containing information that is likely to be out of date and therefore cannot be trusted.
We would suggest that the Law Society reconsiders its revolutionary plans for conveyancing before it meets a similar fate to a cuddly bunny that strays onto the Westway.
The results are going to be messy and probably a bit bloody.
