Diary of a High Street Conveyancer – Yet more unnecessary enquiries – but why?

I am acting in the sale of a nice detached house in a local town. Nothing unusual on the title; excellent clients who have given me all of the information I need in order to send a good contract package with certificates for all works done.

Nice and easy, I thought; how wrong I was.

I received enquiries from the buyers’ conveyancer totalling five pages. The name of the document sent to me was ‘standard enquiries’ so that did sort of give the game away, but even so I was very disappointed to see not one question was property specific.

I read through them and it was as if the conveyancer had just decided to send the enquiries without even looking at the contract and supporting documents. And, given the time between them receiving the draft contact documents and sending the enquiries to me was less than five minutes, I’m going to suggest that’s exactly what happened.

I bet the estate agent was impressed – we can all imagine the email they received: “Yes I’ve just received the draft contract documents and have already raised enquiries so now I’m waiting for the seller’s solicitor to respond.”

Not even 10 minutes after I’d received the draft enquiries, the estate agent emailed me: “I’ve heard from the buyers’ conveyancer, they’ve received the draft contract documents  and already sent you enquiries – can you let me know when you’ll be able to send the replies? I’ve told your client to call you to go through those enquiries with you.”

Dear reader – are you feeling my frustration? Are you thinking about how difficult this has become for me? I am now having to consider how I explain the position to my selling client, who now thinks that the buyers’ conveyancer is very efficient.

The enquiries were the usual type: confirm identity, confirm the filed plan is correct, confirm that you will be adopting the code for completion, and so on.

My client called to tell me the estate agent had sent some queries from the buyers’ conveyancer. As they wanted to move quickly, they’d already answered them and were now sending them to me.

And of course my client was very impressed with the speed of the buyers’ conveyancer, and would be grateful if I could send the replies to the buyers’ conveyancer straightaway, please and thank you.

I was very irritated by the whole thing. I had unnecessary enquiries to which the correct response should have been to inform the buyers’ conveyancer they were not property specific, were not protocol-compliant, and would they like to look at GRACE.

But this puts me in a very difficult position. I now have to send the replies from my client confirming they have checked the plan and are happy that it covers what they are selling, and so on.

But what made me the most cross about the whole thing was that I was made to look slow, inefficient and potentially difficult.

Why is this happening? Why are good conveyancers, who have an understanding and appreciation of the rules and what constitutes proper enquiries, being asked meaningless questions and being expected to answer them?

Does anyone know the answer?

This column is written by a real high street conveyancer who wishes to remain anonymous. The views expressed are those of the author and not those of Today’s Conveyancer.

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