Concerns raised 'months before' law firm collapsed

The owners of a conveyancing firm caught up in the collapse of PM Law Ltd has alleged the group repeatedly failed to pay off client mortgages on time, blaming the delays on "bank errors" when questioned.

Sheffield-based PM Law closed on 2 February, leaving hundreds of employees out of work and many clients stranded mid-transaction.

Among the firms trading under the group umbrella was Angela Viney Conveyancing Services, whose owners say clients began reporting issues with mortgage redemption payments in September.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) previously said it was investigating potential fraud at PM Law, including the misappropriation of client money. PM Law has not commented.

The BBC has made repeated attempts to contact PM Law at their Sheffield headquarters in person, by telephone and via email.

We have also put questions to them via the SRA and the law firm appointed to act as intervention agents by the SRA. In addition, we have put questions to a number of senior staff via the business social network LinkedIn and by letter. No response had been received by the time of publication.

PM Law, which had 24 offices in Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Cumbria and Berkshire, specialised in personal injury, wills and conveyancing.

According to its website, the group included firms such as Proddow Mackay, Butterworths Solicitors and WB Pennine Solicitors, employing more than 600 members of staff.

It is estimated PM Law's closure impacts tens of thousands of live cases.

Angela Viney, 78, said her firm, which has offices in Halifax, Huddersfield and Shelf, and which she runs with business partner Darren Becks, joined the PM Law group in 2021.

Under a contractual agreement, she said her firm remained independent, while PM Law handled IT systems, regulatory compliance and professional indemnity insurance.

However, by September 2025, Viney said they were "acutely aware" that PM Law was "not performing as we had hoped".

She alleged mortgage repayments for sale clients were not being made on the completion date as instructed, despite funds being available - an issue which she said became more frequent in the months leading up to the firm's collapse.

Viney said some clients got in touch months later to say their mortgage had not been paid off but when she checked the paperwork and client ledger it was marked as complete.

She said when they had queried the matter with PM Law's accounts department they were told it was a "banking error" and would be "seen to straight away".

However, Viney said when a new mortgage redemption figure came through it was "a much higher figure, because in some cases a couple of months interest had gone on ... but I think that didn't happen just on an odd time".

Viney said she thought the payment delays were due to human error.

"We thought someone was making mistakes," she said.

In addition, she said conveyancing quality scheme checks were often taking up to a week instead of the supposed 48 hours, creating pressure for her staff.

Like many other employees, staff at Angela Viney Conveyancing Services arrived at work on 2 February to find notices on doors stating the premises could not be accessed due to "regulatory concerns".

"There was nothing we could do about it. We know how devastating it is for clients," she said.

Two days later, the SRA confirmed it had intervened, and as a result of the forced closure, Viney said 13 staff had to be made redundant.

"Saying to people who've been working for us for more than 10 years that we are going to have to make you redundant - the toll it's taken on us mentally, that will never repair," she said.

Since the closure of PM Law, HM Land Registry has said it would step in to help any conveyancers and home buyers affected.

It advised affected customers to appoint a new solicitor as soon as possible and said in cases where customers do not appear to have new legal representation yet, it would contact "as many of them as possible".

A spokesperson added that it was currently identifying all applications lodged by PM Law and would review their status and progress before writing to the client of the intervened firm to advise them of any outstanding queries.

Meanwhile, the Legal Services Board (LSB) - the oversight regulator of legal services in England and Wales - said it had written to the SRA asking for "a chronology of events from when it first identified PM Law Group as posing a potential risk to consumers until the point of intervention into PM Law Ltd and associated firms".

In a report the LSB said it had also asked the SRA to "set out the steps it is taking to assess the wider risk to consumers in light of this intervention, and what immediate steps may need to be taken to reduce that risk".

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