Thankfully we are all waking up after a great and successful night’s football, and the mood and morale of the country is positive, as those involved in the world of property prepare for a final last-minute push. That is assuming that today is the end of something, and with some aspects of the SDLT holiday remaining, I appreciate that it might not be.
The differences in the roles of estate agent and conveyancer have been highlighted right up to the last minute. I received this message from a conveyancer late yesterday:
“Is anyone else getting calls from EAs to check that their accounts will be paid tomorrow ahead of their month end? The EA was not too happy when I said I’d be prioritising sale proceeds to my client and not a chance of payment tomorrow if funds are received late.”
The flip side being that some conveyancers have actually been asking for commission invoices before exchange (in a simultaneous exchange/completion situation course), so they can settle the invoice promptly.
Having been involved in the property world for decades, one thing is sadly clear to me, the relationship between conveyancer and estate agent does not appear to be like it used to be in the 70s, 80s, and early 90s, when there was much more co-operation, understanding and even socialising.
I suppose some of the issues (misunderstandings?) are now caused because agents and conveyancers don’t even have to meet face to face anymore, even if their offices are only yards away from each other. In fact, during the pandemic, that was frowned upon of course.
I would like to think that when the dust has settled and we all have time to reflect, that maybe, just maybe the occasional olive branch will be offered and some meaningful meetings will result.
There are thousands of estate agents and conveyancers who have worked as hard and as diligently as they could, and I am sure in many cases the sense of appreciation has flowed both ways. However, I wonder what we have learned about each other other (estate agent and conveyancer) in the last 12 months, anything that could be turned into a positive?
Rob Hailstone is founder of the Bold Group, a network of conveyancers.
Comments (11)
You compare apples and oranges.
One must have a commission-based sale whatever (legally) it takes, the other will have no hesitation (as that is their duty) to abandon the sale if it is not in their client’s best interest.
The two approaches will by definition conflict.
I’d imagine the Silver Fox’s EA friend has pressure from another quarter; most probably staff who are normally paid in the month following receipt of invoice settlement. A completion payment due this month that trips into July would provide a frustrating extra month’s delay for what might have been a bumper month for those staff unless such a rule was waived by a generous employer.
This and other cashflow elements can sometimes involve a degree of jiggery-pokery, sometimes involving those sales where there is a much delayed completion but a looming VAT quarter to address, but without receipt of funds. A draft invoice is what we deploy in such cases, the same for planned simultaneous exchange/completions.
Actually the conveyancing process has stood up very well to the strain. What has been proven is there is no substitute for able, experienced, competent, hard working staff of the highest integrity who understand the process and put their clients first. The factories have been shown to be the wrong place for conveyancing at this time, whilst the firms claiming to be technology driven have continued to prove difficult to deal with because they have not invested in that scarce but so vital resource, experienced competent staff. The technophiles will never get it, probably because they are not experienced conveyancers themselves.
Too many people of little knowledge have been critical of conveyancers at this time. As indeed I have, and I will continue to criticise low standards and bad conveyancing because of my passion and love of the job. But I have been able to help a lot of good people get through this month and I have seen how hard they have worked, Obstacles have been placed in their path by other parties involved in the process, but certainly all the conveyancers I have been able to advise and support have been brilliant for the last few months.
Even today Agents are chasing updates on files only just opened and being slow to send through commission accounts to assist with statements. Yet they seem to be the ones immune to criticism? There is a saying – “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing”. In the case of many Agents in the recent past, that sums them up.
Just like everything in todays life IT under the banner of revolution, has made people isolated and often insular … less communication results in dwindling camaraderie and more complaining. Turn the clocks back 30 or more years, business lunches and Friday tea time happy hour before going home had just about everyone (agents, solicitors, bank or building society managers etc), including competitors a happy bunch who got on with each other and it worked well, particularly when a favour was needed.
Call centres and working from home started the rot and it continues today……lack of friendship creates ‘trouble at mill’.
Estate Agency isn’t broken. It’s the conveyancing process, charging model and (too often) attitude that leaves a lot to be desired.
Absolutely agree.
We have managed to sell, exchange and complete five new homes this week alone, one turned from sale to completion in 48 hours!
It’s often will and skill that get’s the job done.
It was announced yesterday by the BBC News that, ‘The hybrid car-aircraft, AirCar, is equipped with a BMW engine and runs on regular petrol-pump fuel. Its creator, Prof Stefan Klein, said it could fly about 1,000km (600 miles), at a height of 8,200ft (2,500m), and had clocked up 40 hours in the air so far. It takes two minutes and 15 seconds to transform from car into aircraft’.
So there we have it a James Bond car that converts into a plane in two minutes, and yet if you want to buy a home in the UK typically it is a 28-week saga. The big question is why? The reach of technology doubles every year, and in 1988 two million properties were sold and completed in just one year, before the days of cloud computing and the internet.
Now in 2021, to get 1.2 million properties completed has made the conveyancing, estate agency and lending sectors overheat – yet we can buy online at Amazon and have a carboard box with a smile the very next day. Maybe Amazon will get into estate agency.
I’d rather they got into Conveyancing!
Maybe conveyancing has more moving parts and is more complicated than the AirCar:)
I agree re the comments of days gone by. Thursday after work in Cheltenham, agents and solicitors would meet and mix in The Retreat or Montpelier Wine Bar. The relationships were better, often Fridays were when agents ended up in the pub where we chatted, socialised, compared notes and sometimes did business. That just doesn’t happen now with the internet and emails.
dead industry.