Sales Progression vs Conveyancing: What's the Difference?
The two get used almost interchangeably outside the industry, and confused fairly often inside it. They're not the same job. Conveyancing is the legal work that transfers ownership of a property. Sales progression is the active management of everyone and everything involved in getting a sale to that point, the conveyancing included.
Conveyancing: the legal transfer of ownership
A conveyancer or solicitor handles the legal side of a property transaction: drafting and reviewing contracts, running local authority and other searches, raising and answering enquiries between the buyer's and seller's solicitors, checking title, and handling the exchange and completion process itself. It's a defined, regulated piece of legal work with a clear start (instruction) and end (completion).
Sales progression: keeping the whole transaction moving
Sales progression sits above conveyancing and works alongside it. A sales progressor tracks the entire chain, every linked transaction rather than just one, chases every party (solicitors, mortgage brokers, surveyors, other agents) for updates and next steps, flags problems and key dates before they become urgent, and keeps vendors and buyers informed along the way. Conveyancing is the legal engine. Progression is the person making sure that engine, and everyone connected to it, keeps moving.
| Conveyancing | Sales progression |
|---|---|
| Legal transfer of ownership | Active management of the whole transaction and chain |
| Handled by a solicitor or licensed conveyancer | Handled by an in-house progressor or a specialist progression team |
| Focused on one transaction | Tracks every linked transaction in the chain |
| Regulated legal process | Coordination, communication and chasing |
| Starts at instruction, ends at completion | Runs from the moment the sale is agreed to completion |
Where this sits in your agency
Some agencies run progression entirely in-house, with a dedicated progressor or team who owns the caseload from sale agreed to completion. Others outsource it to a specialist provider. Both are legitimate models. The right one depends on your volume, your margins and how much you want progression to feel like a direct extension of your own service. We cover the trade-offs properly in in-house vs outsourced sales progression.
See what dedicated progression looks like
VelocitySPX gives an in-house progressor everything they need to run a caseload from sale agreed to completion, in one place.
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