Conveyancing transactions reached record levels in the first quarter as landlords and second-home buyers were helped to beat the Stamp Duty deadline.

The latest Conveyancing Market Tracker from Search Acumen, based on Land Registry data, showed a post-recession quarter one record of 275,002 transactions registered between January and March 2016.

This was up 10% from the previous Q1 record set two years ago in 2014, which was just ahead of the introduction of new lending rules under the mortgage market rules.

Volumes were also up 15% year-on-year.

The bigger firms are starting to lose their dominance, the data reveals, with market share among the five top-ranked firms falling from 8% in the first quarter of 2014 to 5% now.

Firms ranked from 21^st to 50^th experienced the second-best year-on-year growth rate, with average Q1 transactions up from 551 to 665, a rise of 21%, while the top 1,000 firms in the market experienced 16% annual growth, compared with 11% outside the top 1,000.

Mark Riddick, chairman of Search Acumen, said: “Conveyancers’ services have been in high demand so far this year as buyers of second homes and buy-to-let properties created a stampede to beat the April 2016 stamp duty deadline.

“The artificial stimulus of government intervention has put major pressure on workloads – more than we’ve seen in the opening exchanges of any year since the recession and topping the pre-MMR rush of 2014.

“Our analysis points to another interesting trend in the market, where challenger firms have enjoyed the biggest benefits of the year-on-year rise in transactions.

“As conveyancers pause for breath after the Stamp Duty frenzy, there may be some who are left licking their wounds or feeling their business performance could have been better.”