Jabbari: Rescuing people from the black hole of conveyancing delay
A law firm that promises home movers “fast conveyancing” has told Legal Futures that it meets its targets for accelerated exchanges 80% of the time.
Muve, based in South-West London, has relaunched its Muve Fast product as Muve Lightspeed, which guarantees to reach exchange in five weeks for freehold properties or eight weeks for leasehold.
If it cannot meet these deadlines, the fee is reduced by £100 for every week of delay, but the firm said it meets them 80% of the time.
Muve charges an average conveyancing fee of around £1,500 for its standard Muve Forward product, with Lightspeed an extra £600-900, depending on the channel the instruction comes through.
Asked how it overcomes a slow conveyancer on the other side, a spokesman said: “This is the biggest problem in developing a fast service…
“It comes down to deploying special teams who are given additional KPIs to ensure that pressure and chasing of the other side solicitor is maximised: this can be more effective than one might think.”
The tech-driven firm recorded its best-ever month in March, ahead of the change in stamp duty, with 1,820 completions.
Muve said Lightspeed was more than just a rebrand from the previous Muve Fast product, explaining that it has been “reengineered from the ground up to directly tackle the most common causes of delay in conveyancing”.
There was “a much stronger focus on early risk detection, faster access to property data, and legal prep work that begins earlier in the process”. It has also introduced dedicated case teams, enhanced milestone tracking, and priority processing.
Chief executive David Jabbari said: “Our new branding centres on the theme of rescuing people from the ‘black hole’ of conveyancing complexity and delay. The new Lightspeed branding aims to cement Muve as the leading disruptor brand for fast conveyancing in the UK.”
Muve has attracted some criticism within the profession – and in some consumer reviews, although it has a 4.5 star Trustpilot score – for much of its work being done in Sri Lanka, where it has 390 staff. There are 70 staff in the UK.
It has a UK ‘centre of excellence’ which handles complex cases or areas where the offshore resourcing is not appropriate, but Mr Jabbari said the quality of the offshore element has grown so much that “this demarcation has become quite narrow now”.
He explained: “Unlike some other larger conveyancing firms who have entered contracts with local providers for certain aspects of the process, we built our own wholly owned operation in Sri Lanka, and we have been able – via close relationships with law schools and others – to recruit high-grade people capable of acting as paralegals, all supervised by UK solicitors.
“So we have been able to do more of the work than our competitors in our offshore centre.”
Muve has been included in The Sunday Times 100 fastest-growing UK companies for the last two years.
anon 
One of the most offensive press releases I have ever read. Seriously Mr Jabbari how can you say what you do with a straight face?
Some observations:-
1. Have they invested in experienced and able staff based in England otherwise this is going to be the same sh**show as before?
2. When receiving an instruction shouldn’t the goal of any competent, professional firm be to exchange contracts as soon as possible? Not to place timescales on clients based on how much they are paying? Where do they get the random timescales they are quoting from?
3. Assuming a client is foolish enough to instruct on the lower fee, will that file just sit in a corner for weeks whilst resources are concentrated on those clients paying a higher fee?
4. What does the small print say? Given that this firm, from experience, cannot exchange files inside the 18 weeks referred to when acting for a seller with only his buyer in the chain, they stand to be giving back an awful lot of money unless they have cleverly worded caveats?
Come on CLC have a close look at this and the working practices of this firm, it is totally embarrassing. Certainly goes against your Code of Conduct? People are watching with interest.