I have worked as a qualified solicitor in the conveyancing business for 20 years. Over the most recent few of those years, I, and most likely all of you reading, have practised through the Covid pandemic, through the stamp duty holiday, and through those fateful final days of the Liz Truss era.
In these brief years, I have seen a lot of solicitors leave the profession, many of them completely burned out, and a lot of new starters enter – young, qualified, and at the foot of their careers. It’s the biggest staff turnaround I’ve ever witnessed, and it should be invigorating the sector.
But they are coming into a job and an industry that looks nothing like it did twenty years ago; a job that has lapsed into the mundane.
As solicitors in modern conveyancing, we no longer practise law.
Instead, we spend most of our time arguing about whether a boiler has been serviced, or electrics have been tested, not the legal points of the title.
This is largely due to a change in client expectations. It’s gone from nobody caring whether or not the boiler has been serviced, to the buyer’s solicitors saying, ‘we’re going to advise our client not to proceed if you don’t get your client to service the boiler prior to completion’.
But I don’t care about the boiler. I care that the transaction adheres with all current legislations and laws. After twenty years, I’m no longer looking for extensions that breach a restrictive covenant, I’m arguing about boilers. And our young solicitors are not being allowed to do the job they’ve worked so hard to train for.
There is a simple solution to this problem. A small step to steer ourselves off this prosaic: up-front information provided by the seller to prospective buyers via the estate agent.
The UK industry has thus far resisted the idea of up-front information. But it’s a win-win for all involved. The seller avoids fall-throughs. The buyer wastes less of their own time. The estate agent expedites the whole process and brings forward their pay day.
What other major purchases do we commit to without having all of the pertinent information in advance? Would you book a holiday without knowing anything about the hotel? Or a car without knowing its mileage? It’s bananas to think that most instantaneously transformative improvement to our sector would come from such a simple solution as up-front information.
The conveyancing game is full of young blood. They have new, propellant skills that were never prevalent before, and they have trained specifically to work in property law. Can’t we just let them do it? Because it can’t all be about the boiler.
Ruth Beeton is co-founder of Home Sale Pack, and is partner and head of conveyancing at HS Conveyancing Ltd.
I agree with this.
And let estate agents get back to marketing properties, finding and negotiating with buyers and supporting the process to completion.
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The process is so much more involved now. Pre 21st century, about 12 steps to completion, now at least double that, and increasing more by the day. Getting a conveyancer involved earlier on would definitely be a help, but more understanding and collaboration is also needed.
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As is picking up a phone rather than sending emails
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There are 2 horses in the race.
Material Information is up and running. It’s a legal requirement for estate agents to provide the information. The guidance from National Trading Standards states that instructing a Solicitor before listing the property makes sense so that MI can be complied with.
UpFrontInformation is the unicorn dreamt up by all the technology companies and HMLR and is centred around Open Data. It’s likely to add to the seller’s or buyer’s or both costs.
The winner is Material Information. The production of MI by a Solicitor will add nothing to the legal fees (because we do it already) will provide certainty for buyers and improve completion timescales.
I hope you back the winner.
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But wait! No FENSA certificate for the windows! They look fine and have been in 10 years but what a huge risk!!
Cancel the sale!!
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The remedy for that is (apparently) an indemnity insurance policy – frustratingly, if the buyer requires a mortgage, the Mortgage Lenders Handbook usually requires the sum insured to cover the entire purchase price.
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No common sense…
Ie. I want your client to order a copy of the gas safe certificate, it’s shown on my local search, it’s shown on the gas safe website…. We need it…. Hmmm, you don’t. It holds no value!
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I’ll put this in quotes and make it clear this is what I heard someone else say
” If conveyancers aren’t careful they will face disruption from agents who work out that with all the material information they’re required to collate to satisfy consumer needs they might as well prepare the contract for the vendor. A paradigm shift in the way the industry works. It’s easy to see fewer conveyancers who only represent the purchaser”
The speaker foresaw agents having a conveyancing person or persons
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And with that will come very expensive professional indemnity insurance.
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It is inevitable agents are all but foinf to sold job now anyway
we are in discussion with someone we usxe to come and work for us
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Say again?
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And we have been able to complete on auction sales on the same day, for decades!!!
Why is this resisted in the private treaty market?
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I don’t even ask my clients about boiler servicing, it’s a flat out no.
To many of us are getting lazy, the same standard batch of questions… Not even thinking about what’s being raised… it’s not just conveyer belt firms, it’s small high street too.
The whole industry needs a shake up,
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Well one sure is coming up REAL SOON, 6 solicitors CANNOT BELIEVE my Title Deeds Plans etc neighbours bought in 2017 and HALF THEIR 5 BEDROOM 3 bathrooms, 3 receptions in ON MY LAND … Not too bad Adverse Possession Claim ? NOPE ITS RESERVED BY 1963 Conveyance as LandLOCKED so only access WAS via Right of Way Pedestrians only over my Private Land ? And use my Private Sewer was 3 bedrooms up and 1 bathroom and lounge and kitchen downstairs .. much much WORSE .. sold to mortgaged buyer … Once before 2011 purchase of shared Driveway and motor vehicles & Pedestrians, car parking, rear gates and HUGE Garden … But GAP .. no one has been able to register the GAP … Now buyer does not understand Benn V HARDINGE [1992 etc] 175 years and Dwyer v Westminster & Citizens [2014 etc] … 40 years, Clark Wilmot Tiverton, Right of Way practice note on line [2014] … So what about Title and Conveyancing ? Ask Barclays how they feel ? “Good Title” on two DN parcels but gap and half house NOT ON IT … It’s not insured ? And not the only one … Ooh did I say it’s ON RIGHT OF WAY MINE ???
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Sorry it was 2 bedrooms Reserved … Unable to edit original post
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This explains why, when I sold a flat last year, the buyer’s solicitor wanted to know if I would be servicing the boiler. Poitning out that it was newly installed just five months earlier, I told them No, so they wanted the certificate of installation. Then they asked again if I would have it serviced. My solicitor pointed out that I had a certificate that was legal and would not be wasting money on an unecessary service.
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Well one sure is coming up REAL SOON, 6 solicitors CANNOT BELIEVE my Title Deeds Plans etc neighbours bought in 2017 and HALF THEIR 5 BEDROOM 3 bathrooms, 3 receptions in ON MY LAND … Not too bad Adverse Possession Claim ? NOPE ITS RESERVED BY 1963 Conveyance as LandLOCKED so only access WAS via Right of Way Pedestrians only over my Private Land ? And use my Private Sewer was 3 bedrooms up and 1 bathroom and lounge and kitchen downstairs .. much much WORSE .. sold to mortgaged buyer … Once before 2011 purchase of shared Driveway and motor vehicles & Pedestrians, car parking, rear gates and HUGE Garden … But GAP .. no one has been able to register the GAP … Now buyer does not understand Benn V HARDINGE [1992 etc] 175 years and Dwyer v Westminster & Citizens [2014 etc] … 40 years, Clark Wilmot Tiverton, Right of Way practice note on line [2014] … So what about Title and Conveyancing ? Ask Barclays how they feel ? “Good Title” on two DN parcels but gap and half house NOT ON IT … It’s not insured ? And not the only one … Ooh did I say it’s ON RIGHT OF WAY MINE ???
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