TL;DR
Conveyancing firm RG Law says homebuyers are increasingly using AI to write long lists of questions and complaints that take no account of where their purchase actually stands, forcing its staff to correct assumptions before the deal can move on. The problem is worst in leasehold sales. The Property Ombudsman, meanwhile, says it will not require people who complain to disclose whether they used AI.
What the firm is seeing
RG Law gave two examples. In one, an AI-written complaint from a purchaser gave the firm seven days to produce outstanding information or face the buyer pulling out. The letter ignored that the property was leasehold, and that the draft contract papers had landed only nine weeks earlier. In another, a client raised asbestos, reserve funds, future costs and fire-safety works. Several points were already answered in reports the buyer held; others depended on information the seller’s side had not yet supplied.
Loren Ringshall, a conveyancing case manager at the firm, said AI “can produce a response that sounds authoritative, but is based on assumptions, general information or an incomplete picture of the case.” Each point on a long list has to be verified against the case file, she explained, which can mean rereading reports and chasing other parties, and AI-generated letters carry a cost when they create work nobody would otherwise have needed to do.
Her point is not that buyers should stop asking. It is that AI can harden a reasonable worry into a demand that bears no relation to the stage the transaction has reached.
A pattern across sectors
The warning comes against a poor record. No area of legal practice draws more complaints than residential conveyancing, making up 36% of complaints the Legal Ombudsman accepted, and those complaints rose 41% on the previous year.
Similar reports have come from elsewhere. Councils have described 27-page AI-written complaints about missed bins, and Robert Half says AI-written applications are slowing UK hiring. In each case the cost of producing a document has fallen while the cost of answering it has not.
Looking forward
Lesley Horton of The Property Ombudsman said its codes govern agents rather than consumers, and that “legitimate complaints” should not “face unnecessary barriers”. Its scheme covers property agents rather than conveyancers, but the stance points the same way: the business receiving an AI-written complaint carries the cost of handling it. For conveyancers, one practical response could be clearer progress updates at each stage, so that buyers, and the tools they use, have the context AI currently lacks.