A new conveyancing firm, Farringdon, is set to launch in the UK’s residential property market, aiming to improve speed in property transactions using artificial intelligence (AI). Farringdon is established by Ed Boulle, Co-founder of Orbital.
At Orbital, the team built technology which helped property lawyers accomplish legal work, and they powered over 200,000 property transactions across the globe all year. This amounted to almost 10% of residential transactions in England and Wales.
“Moving home should be one of life’s best moments, but the process of making it happen can be extraordinarily stressful and unpleasant. Poor visibility, communication blackspots and bottlenecked information flows – all often created by the conveyancer’s lack of bandwidth – are problems buyers and sellers have come to expect as part and parcel of the process.
“At Farringdon, we’re throwing out those assumptions. We’ve designed our firm from the ground up around AI to prove that it is possible to deliver the same high-quality experience consistently, regardless of the variables at play.
“Our AI-led approach isn’t designed with only buyers and sellers in mind, but for the agents and advisers working with them too. No agent or adviser wants to be left in the dark or for their client to reflect on their property transaction with dissatisfaction; it’s bad for business.”
Ed Boulle, Co-founder, Orbital
Farringdon will aim to automate repetitive workflows and seeks to build better conveyancing experiences for customers through streamlined technology. They will have an AI agent to scan for issues in advance to make sure transactions proceed steadily, preventing matters from falling through.
“A barrier for all agents to build business and win more sales is the amount of time and effort it takes to stay on top of current transactions and navigate communications between clients and conveyancers working on both sides of a deal.
“We’re looking forward to seeing how Farringdon can exploit AI efficiencies to deliver a consistent higher standard of service irrespective of their caseload or transaction complexity.”
Robert Aveling, Deputy Head of Residential Agency and Development, JLL
The company will be situated in Central London and regulated by the Council for Licensed Conveyancers.
Farringdon is also working with agency partners to support buyers and sellers across the UK. JLL and Streets Ahead Estate Agency Group have so far been confirmed as their first partners.
“No agent wants to be caught off guard by a client who does not understand the advice they have been given by their conveyancer. Agents want to be kept in the loop, but all too often they are the last to know.
“Chasing updates takes time away from winning new business. What agents need is a reliable, consistent service, and Farringdon has both the technology and the legal expertise to deliver something genuinely exciting in this space. It is rare to find a firm that is equally built on legal knowledge and AI engineering.”
Scott Ayliffe, Streets Ahead Estate Agency Group, Owner
Sue Bence will be Farringdon’s COO, she holds over two decades of experience as Partner, COO and board-level roles, including three years as COO of Simply Conveyancing.
In addition, Sarah Debney joins Farringdon to serve as the Head of Legal Practice.
“Our ambition with Farringdon is simple: to show that the variability that has long characterised the conveyancing process is not inevitable. It should now be possible to build a law firm that is not constrained by traditional capacity limitations, and that delivers a consistently high standard of service irrespective of the individual lawyer handling the transaction or the nature of the property involved. That is the kind of firm I want to build. That is the kind of firm I want to work for.”
Ed Boulle, Co-founder, Orbital
