12 August 2005 The UK’s biggest estate agency chain, Countrywide, has revealed that problems with its conveyance software system, built by IT service provider Logica CMG have cost it £2 million.

According to reports in The Daily Telegraph, executives at Countrywide are considering taking legal action to recover the £6 million paid to Logica, if the system cannot be fixed.

A Countrywide executive told the newspaper that computer issues had led to delays in the implementation of its conveyance system and caused a loss of £2 million at an operating level.

In April 2005, Countrywide warned that the system was having difficulties processing the increasing number of housing transactions processed being online.

In 2003, Countrywide signed a £27 million deal with LogicaCMG, to help introduce a new re-mortgaging service in the UK. The deal included building and designing software to help conveyancing, as well as an outsourced document handling service.

Countrywide said that it had employed a number of contractors to try to rectify the problems with the software. It reported no other problems with the contract.