Buying and selling property can often feel like a bit of a game. Purchasers try and make it up the ladder, but it is not always easy to avoid slipping up.
Whether it is survey issues, local authority search delays, or simply being gazumped, there are a number of snakes to look out for.
To help home buyers and sellers understand the rules, Rob Hailstone, CEO, Bold Legal Group, has put together a short video to explain the conveyancing process.
Hailstone said: “For some time now I have wanted to produce a short and simple animation video that would help explain the conveyancing process to clients, and maybe some others involved in home buying and selling.
“As we all know, home buying and selling can be complicated and protracted, usually for very good, but often misunderstood reasons. Delays can be made worse if a particular transaction is one in a chain of transactions. However, many home buyers and sellers do not understand even the basics, and do not appreciate the difference between exchange of contracts and completion, let alone understand the chain concept, searches and enquiries.
“Written explanations [even if looked at] often leave people more confused about the process than before they read them.
“With all of this in mind, I have, at last, had produced a video I hope will help with this perennial problem.
“There is of course only so much information you can convey in a 90 second video, so with my fingers firmly crossed.”
Comments (8)
Great video to enlighten the customer of what is involved and I have no doubt that is all it is intended to do.
But it doesn’t address the fact that it is actually telling you it is a process that can become involved with your property lawyer and delays. It is isn’t addressing the need or how to reduce delays which is the bit all find frustrating. So now I know what is involved … great, has it changed anything? Has it improved the conveyancing process? Will my sale be quicker which is nearly always the sellers/buyers dream? No, but at least I now know what is involved and if delays, am I a happy buyer/seller …. possibly not.
The process of conveyancing needs to evolve, fix that and the bit about ‘can cause delays’ may go away to some extent. Then everyone will be much happier.
I think I have worked for plenty of those snakes in the conveyancing profession over the years. And plenty more more still kicking around in the long grass today.
This is a great video and example of what I call “explainer” videos – short, sharp, easy to digest pieces of content to educate consumers.
If you cannot explain exactly what your product or service does in one minute, then that should be a cause for concern! It’s a good exercise to undertake.
I read a while back that one minute of video has more impact on the human brain that one million words of text. That is why video is so important to any business looking to increase their digital footprint. It also helps you do something very important and that is build an audience.
Explainer videos have a long shelf life and do not tend to date. Businesses also need what I call “topical” videos, which are much more fast moving and based on a trending topic within the sector, or opinion/commentary. This style of video helps increase your domain expertise while also making you more findable and relatable on the social web.
Businesses need to create both types of videos imho.
Every business should have a small studio set up and employ an “predator” – a producer/editor – to create this content. Ultimately, this type of content, if you get it right, will drive eyeballs in perpetuity, and that should result in a reduction of spending on traditional paid-for SEO.
As many of you may be aware, I came from a broadcast TV background and worked at MTV Music Television. MTV was all about “bite size chunks” of packaged information, so it was ahead of its time in a way, not to mention that music videos are exactly that! At MTV, we had to cut every bit of fat out of content and make it entertaining and easily digestible and it’s good to have that kind of discipline these days as well.
I believe in creating long-form content and then cutting it down and re-purposing it into smaller, “quick view” chunks. This gives people the option to take a deep dive, or just consume the bits that interest them. It’s the best of both worlds.
I currently do a content collab with Mashroom on an hour long live webinar addressing about 5 landlord topics and we post that in full, and then cut the video down into 5 x individual topics. We also take viewers’ questions and cut those down into individual videos. So one video ends up giving us around 6 or 7 pieces of individual content. I have found this very effective on the social web.
Great video Rob! I thought it was an excellent way of talking about, it to help everyone appreciate why an exact completion date is hard to set. Good analogy.
Wrong side of the bed today Mike? I ran it past a lot of agents, conveyancers and potential home movers pre-release, all very positive. And before you ask, no they weren’t all friends and some offered constructive criticism, most of which was taken on board (pun intended).
Attention spans in the 21st century are short, that is why the animation is also.
It isn’t really about how the process could work Mike, but how it does work, and yes, I might produce another if/when agents and conveyancers begin working together on up front info.
My member firms will hopefully send a link to their clients and their agent contacts. If anyone else wants a link, please contact me.
It isn’t about taking the heat off of anyone, just trying to explain that there are a lot of moving parts in a chain of conveyancing transactions, and no one party has total control.
“It might help but, whilst a positive effort, I do feel a real collaborative opportunity to actually educate and improve the process may have been missed.”
Always open to new ideas and working with positive people.
Obviously very simplistic but valid.
As Rob said – explain home buying process in 90 seconds – hmmm!
Written from a conveyancers perspective – no mention of how estate agents could be working with conveyancers to speed up process for example. Upfront information etc.
Who is going to see this and when?
Conveyancers are not usually the first port of call for a consumer in the home buying process so unless conveyancers find ways of getting video in hands of potential clients at an early stage (before transaction starts) it may get missed.
Collaboration with estate agents (invariably the catalyst for the process) could have seen this video (or something similar) get the eyeballs of consumers at the right time – before they start.
I guess the intention of the video is to try and take the heat off of conveyancers by them making their clients aware of the snakes and ladders by getting the retaliation in first!
It might help but, whilst a positive effort, I do feel a real collaborative opportunity to actually educate and improve the process may have been missed.
Really like this – strikes a great balance between serious and not so serious.
As an industry we tend to promote the *we’ll make everything easy” message when actually, it’s highlighting the snakes and how to overcome them that is the key!
What an excellent idea!
Well done Rob a great way to explain a complicated situation.