The home-buying process is an “imperfect market” that conveyancers must brush up their communication skills.
Speaking at yesterday’s Conveyancing Association conference, Baroness Hayter – a long-time advocate of estate and letting agency licensing – said that as long as there is a possibility of a “nervous breakdown” in the buying process, then there is a problem that needs to be fixed.
She said many worries can be placed at the door of estate agents, but warned that conveyancers must improve the way they communicate, so that buyers and sellers understand what is going on.
Hayter said: “Purchasing a home is the one area that consumers are least able to engage with.”
She said: “Home buying and legal exchange is a market with a problem. There is an asymmetry of information between lawyer and client.
“Lawyers know what they are talking about but buyers can feel vulnerable in this situation.”
She said conveyancers must consider the changing ways consumers want to be kept informed about, and involved in, decisions.
She told delegates: “You should compete on price, speed and efficiency but also on softer skills of client care.
She backed the Conveyancing Association’s recent White Paper which called for a move towards a home movers portal where all relevant documents are stored and a form of HIPs-lite provided, but said she would like to see conveyancers display prices more clearly to help people shop around.
Hayter added that consumer protection would also be enhanced through the recently announced lettings fee ban and if her campaign for letting agent compulsory Client Money Protection proves successful.
She said: “The promised ban on lettings fees and hopefully compulsory CMP will provide enhanced protection for consumers in the housing world, and will alter the culture.”
Another speaker, Legal Ombudsman Kathryn Stone, said most consumer complaints were about conveyancing and related to communication.
She said: “People want information on delays. What may be a standard delay to you is a horrendously worrying delay for people buying a house.
“This isn’t about dumbing down but communicating effectively.”
Most people can deal with bad, unwanted or unexpected news well if it’s communicated in an appropriate and timely manner
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My greatest problem, which i am sure is shared by many fellow agents is solicitors lack of desire for communication. Apart from a select few, communication is awful, not just with us, but with their clients. A reluctance to return phone calls or emails is far too common, when you do talk to some, it can often come across that you are interrupting something far more important. I had a vendor yesterday ask his solicitor to contact his buyers solicitor over something, the response was “get your estate agent to do it, make them earn their money”!!!
Now i had already been doing this, but the awful statement from the solicitor was disappointing to say the least.
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Very badly handled by the lawyer. But I have a certain amount of sympathy. I had so many experiences when someone asked me to chase something (the client say) and when about to do it I was then asked to do the same thing by the agent, the broker and other side. It got to the point where I had to say if you get off the phone to me now, it will be done.
In the 90s I was fortunate enough to work very closely with eight offices of a national chain of estate agents. I received a lot of work and was expected to do that work efficiently (whilst protecting my clients best interests). I managed most of the time to keep all of the plates spinning, but that was aided greatly by help and support from the agents, when needed.
Conveyancer and agent working hand in hand is not that difficult if both parties have a mutual respect for each other and an understanding of the complexities and difficulties of their respective jobs.
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The difficulty for conveyancers being that they have slashed their fees to the point where they can barely function.
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Like letting agents will be soon you mean? Except we won’t have any fees!
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Relying too heavily on price cuts service. We sell on service not price. Why would you want clients who cannot see the value of what you are achieving for them. We want to get the job done as fast as possible but we also want to do it properly. That means capping the number of files that fee earners have so that they don’t make mistakes.
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sb007sk. I agree completely. In so many cases it’s almost as if communication is below them. “We are the lawyers and are very important. Will you little people stop bothering us. We are making enquiries.”
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It was a very well organised, run, constructive and well attended conference with a few estate agents present. However, they were able to contribute greatly to the discussions. Maybe more agents will attend events like these in the future.
One particular suggestion that received a lot of support (and is dear to my heart) was the collation of ‘information upfront’. Particularly if the buyer’s solicitor/conveyancer can receive that information the moment a sale is agreed.
One CA and BLG member firm is currently trialling this ‘information upfront’ process with a local agent contact, with very positive results.
A number of other initiatives were agreed upon in order to move forward and no doubt the CA will issue a press release with more detail shortly.
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Anyone ever had an incident where the seller’s solicitor has told the buyer’s solicitor at a late stage that the vendor has withdrawn from the sale and it’s all off. The buyer has then come to you upset about it, and when you have gone back to the vendor they were just annoyed about a late delay. Talking it through and explaining you have put the whole case back together again….wondering at the same time why the solicitor hadn’t come back to you in the first place when there was an issue, especially as you had been contacting them regularly once a week to check everything was alright.
I reckon at times that over half the time involved in a complete sale can be just acting as go between with the conveyancers and holding the whole thing together…. because they just won’t communicate properly with each other….or you.
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Got a case today buyers solicitors voicemail inbox is full, not answering emails or phone calls yet they are being offered an exchange of contracts.
first thought the buyers were stalling, which they assure me they aren’t.
How solicitors are allowed to get away with this baffles me, playing devils advocate with peoples lives is an absolute joke.
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Some observations for you all, to spice up this thread:-
Solicitors earn lower fees than agents and get annoyed that they are qualified through one form or other, agents don’t have to be but still earn considerably more. Imagine how they feel when they have to pay the agent a referral fee for the lead in the first place.
After the credit crunch, residential conveyancing crumbled and many experienced operators were lost for ever, to be replaced by call centre and on line businesses, with the traditional solicitors now populated by part time conveyancers, and as I have seen to my cost recently, with children of school age who make them feel they need to also be wonder parent as well as wonder solicitor.
Estate agents have invested in sale chasers/progressors who are ill informed, incompetent and ask every Friday (just as the solicitors go for lunch/long weekend/pick their children up from school) are ‘we ready to exchange yet’? This is to keep their sales manager happy who has to do his weekly whiteboard exercise and misreport to their line manager….as they are behind target again.
Solicitors are not client focused or aware that they are having a bearing on the life plan their client is trying to fulfill.
Solicitors are reactive not proactive, unless they are heading to the 19th hole.
They are frightened of being sued and/or reported to the SRA for malpractice, so will continually raise questions and additional questions to try and trip up the sellers solicitor, hence protecting themselves.
Too many conveyancers are now employed by online call centres with no direct accountability, and just box tickers.
Buyers can be thick…how often have you dealt with intelligent professionals who when they get to exchange haven’t transferred cleared funds for exchange, forgetting they need to do identity checks even though it is their money…and of course have they signed the contract! Do they know what a report on Title is…in fact, does the agent even know that or are they more worried about their hair gel and pointy shoes and showing off to the lettings team girls.
Solicitors are trained that as part of contract and tort, they must hate estate agents…page 12 of the training manual.
The do have to suffer dealing with the lenders call centre, so repeat all of the above issues and hence you have a perfect storm.
I shall ask Donald Trump to Tweet a solution and let Farage loose to bring about change! Here endeth the lesson!
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I have been to see a local solicitor recently with whom I want to form a new business relationship. I know I moan sometimes, but dealing with volume cheap online solicitors, is ten times worse. I am not looking for referral fees. I just want a good local professional who will reply to the biweekly or weekly (towards the end) email request for an update that I send, and who will give a good service to the client.
I understand totally that solicitors perhaps think agents don’t earn the fees they get…. but then they don’t realise we deal in much smaller volumes than they do….and a lot of the fee is taken by marketing costs and cases where you end up earning nothing (because someone changes their mind for instance). As agents we also spend a lot of time holding chains together… that solicitors simply would not have the time to do.
I think there is huge scope for a very fruitful symbiotic relationship between an agent and locally based solicitors. It just needs a good integrated communication interface.
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Until agents stop recommending conveyancers based on the size of the bribe the agent gets paid and only recommends Conveyancers based on the level of service nothing will change.
Agents have themselves to blame for most of this. If agents started to ask the government to outlaw taking payments from any 3rd parties, I would have more time for agents that complained about converancers and mortgage brokers.
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Until agents stop recommending conveyancers based on the size of the bribe the agent gets paid and only recommends Conveyancers based on the level of service nothing will change.
Agents have themselves to blame for most of this. If agents started to ask the government to outlaw taking payments from any 3rd parties, I would have more time for agents that complained about converancers and mortgage brokers.
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