Article from Today’s Conveyancer 4.2.26
December 2025 saw Michael Day complete his 50th year in the residential property sector. The well-known industry figure is a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, National Association of Estate Agents and Association of Residential Letting Agents. He has been a partner and director in some of the UK’s most successful property businesses and held senior posts within the industry’s professional bodies and major charities. He is member of the Propertymark:REACH agent advisory panel, which helps new innovation companies scale and grow, and a participating member of the Home Buying and Selling Council. Michael is also a founder member of charitable foundation Agents Together and a director and trustee of The Propertymark Trust.
What was your career path to your current role?
I started my career in December 1975 as a trainee at Wretham and Company in Rayners Lane in north west London and in 2025 celebrated 50 years in the industry. I like to tell people I started when I was three but I was actually 16!
I moved on via a couple of estate agency businesses, achieving my ISVA and NAEA qualifications en-route and joined A C Frost and Company to open a new office in Uxbridge in 1983. This was a huge success and I became an associate partner with responsibility for several offices.
In 1986 we sold A C Frost to the Prudential and I became an area director and then ultimately regional director for London and the Thames Valley.
When the Pru exited estate agency in 1991 I joined Connells, where I spent 12 years and became a main board director. It was during this period that I was involved in both the investment in, and creation of, Rightmove (2000) and the setting up of our conveyancing operation including the acquisition of Conveyancing Direct, where I was a main board director.
I completed a life changing MBA in 2000 and in 2003 set up my own business, Integra Property Services.
I have subsequently worked with over 1500 clients and added to my track record of having taken a law firm, converted them to licensed conveyancers and sold them to an estate agent with the sale of Homefast Property Lawyers to LSL.
What keeps you motivated in your work?
Direct involvement with people and helping them be the best they can be. Whether through coaching and training or mentoring and thought leadership. Helping people look in the mirror, cut through the noise and find solutions to the issues they face.
I am also now very involved in the industry charities – Agents Together and The Propertymark Trust – and this enables me to put something back by using my knowledge, experience and skills to bring greater support and positive change to those who need it.
Some of my current clients are businesses now run by people who I gave their first roles in the industry too. I get a buzz out of knowing that they still regard me as a sound adviser and friend.
If you could change one thing about the transaction process, what would it be?
Making it mandatory for a seller to instruct a conveyancer at the point of marketing a property in order to be legally prepared, reduce timeframes and transactional risk. This is what we did at Connells with our conveyancing operation 25 years ago and it transformed our sales performance – reducing transaction timeframes, increasing revenues and profits and generating happier clients and customers.
Key will be the stakeholders in the process aligning their businesses (including fee models) and working more collaboratively: removing the adversarial barriers for more successful outcomes.
Fee levels have largely become the lever of choice to be pulled in order to secure business – this is a nonsense and has undoubtedly contributed to the poor service standards, knowledge and professionalism we see across the sector.
Conveyancers have allowed themselves to get to the bottom of the food chain. Positive reform, even with developing technology, will not be possible from such a low base.
What has been the best development in conveyancing in the last 20 years?
The deregulation of solicitors’ conveyancing practices in England and Wales under the Legal Services Act 2007. The creation of alternative business structures has allowed for wider ownership, better investment and participation in the market.
However, I still feel there is more that needs to come, in particular with the SRA being more open and modern in their approach to regulation and business structures.
And the worst?
How greed has seen referral fees reach stupid levels and dictate the placement of business, often to the detriment of service and performance and the creation of animosity between stakeholders.
There is nothing wrong, in my opinion, with referral fees but they should better reflect the role of the introducer in actually selling the conveyancing service and effectively providing the conveyancer’s marketing for them.
Estate agents remain the catalyst for the home buying and selling process (although the portals are moving more strongly into the space as the first port of call) and can use that position to drive business based on a holistic benefit to all parties rather than basing it entirely on a headline referral fee.
Do you think conveyancing will ever be fully digitalised?
Before the rapid emergence of AI, I would have said no but, whilst much of the industry and process is not digitally ‘joined up’ I now feel there is a possibility that it can be. I feel that it will likely be driven by commercial imperatives with some required mandation and support from government.
AI is already being used to onboard clients and can drive a lot of the routines and processes undertaken by the stakeholders in the home buying and selling process.
I was on the advisory board of Coadjute and saw how the use of blockchain technology could help join the dots and I am a member of the Propertymark REACH technology incubator advisory group and the Home Buying and Selling Council.
There is still a lot of talk and hot air and many vested interests at play, particularly around risk and PI that it wont be overnight, but there is now some momentum growing.
Do you think it should be?
Short answer. Yes.
We need to see an industry that uses the best technology available to do all of the heavy lifting, leaving a workforce of well paid, qualified professionals to do the human relationship elements – although with Generation Z coming of age, the days of requiring, or even finding, human interaction desirable is waning.
AI is now capable of taking informed ‘decisions’ not only quicker, but more accurately than a human so why couldn’t, wouldn’t or shouldn’t it become central to the conveyancing and related processes?
What’s the best piece of advice you’d like to give to someone just starting out?
Be the best you can be. Be a sponge. Ask questions. Educate yourself and take every opportunity to learn and grow. Network. Find time for people and build relationships. Never close doors, look to open them. Be kind. Remember you can have everything in your life that you want, providing you just help enough other people achieve what they want in life.
Tell us something people may be surprised to know about you…
Following the success of my charity Christmas single last year (thank you to Today’s Conveyancer for your support) it may be less of a surprise – but I am, in fact, a rock God in waiting!
I have a number of original songs across all of the streaming and social channels and an album (in both digital and physical CD format) called Prodigal Son that will be released officially on 5 March. You’ll find me as Michael S Day. I’ve been a singer and guitarist since my teens and play regularly on the local open mic and small gig circuit.
The other element to my life that sometimes surprises people is that I had a triple heart bypass in 2021- not everyone had believed I had a heart!
