The Law Society of England and Wales has confirmed that its total investment in failed online conveyancing portal Veyo is likely to be over £7m.
The representative body, which announced in December that Veyo would be shelved before its formal launch following a review of the market, said today (19 January) that, subject to audit, its losses will be “just over £7m.”
Veyo was a joint venture between the Law Society and technology partner Mastek, which set up a dedicated vehicle to deliver the online portal, called Legal Practice Technologies (LPT).
Veyo was supposed to launch in 2015 and charge £20 per transaction but in the interim, free conveyancing portal Free2Convey was launched by Legal Software Suppliers Association. A statement from the Law Society said in December 2015: “New providers have committed to bring free products to market within case management software to deliver LPT’s vision for e-conveyancing. Case management providers are developing products such as Free2Convey, adding value to their existing offer and we welcome any development which means that conveyancing can be done more effectively.”
According to the Law Society’s annual report for 2014, the body invested £600,000 in LPT in May 2014 in consideration for a 60% shareholding in the newly-formed company, with the minority shareholding being held by Mastek (UK) Limited.
The accounts for that year also show that during 2014, The Law Society made “purchases” of £2,667,650 from Mastek, bringing published spending to over £3m.
The accounts also show a loan of just over £1.7m made by Mastek into LPT. The sum is a non-interest bearing unsecured loan with no set repayment date, repayment is however scheduled to take place between 2017 and 2019.
The accounts for 2015 have yet to be published but a spokeperson for the Law Society said today: “We anticipate that the total investment in Veyo will be just over £7m, but we need to wait until creditors are paid and the accounts audited before being able to confirm the final amount.”
