In a profession built on precision, trust, and the clear relay of legal advice, an unsettling trend may be emerging, conveyancers making transaction related decisions without first advising and consulting with their clients.
Time and again, conveyancers find themselves deep into a matter, only to hit an infuriating wall, responses from the opposing conveyancer who pushes back without having taken instructions. Even after a clear and sensible proposal is suggested, the other side stalls: “We don’t think that’s necessary,” they say. Yet when pressed, it’s clear that they haven’t even spoken to their client.
This isn’t just frustrating, it’s possibly negligent.
It raises a fundamental issue, the role of a conveyancer (any lawyer in fact) is to advise, not to decide, and a worrying number seem to have forgotten that distinction. Whether it’s dismissing the need for indemnity policies because “they don’t see or agree the risk” or glossing over incomplete documents with a casual “its meaning is obvious,” decisions are sometimes being made on behalf of clients who remain completely unaware of the situation.
A recent example illustrates this perfectly. Three documents were missing, and a plan was poorly marked. The seller’s conveyancer’s response was that they consider the age of the missing documents mean that there is no risk and no policy will be issued. Similarly, re the uncoloured plan, their response is that they think it’s obvious what colouring applies to which area on the plan (there are several colours referenced in the deed itself). It was only after an estate agent (yes, an estate agent) took the initiative to speak directly with the seller that the truth emerged, the seller had no idea about the outstanding issues and immediately agreed to the proposed indemnity policy in order to get the sale moving again. All it took was a conversation. Something their own conveyancer failed to instigate.
Why are we seeing more of this? Is it ego? Burnout? A race to “win” the argument rather than serve the client?
The increasing adversarial tone in conveyancing is undermining collaboration and common sense. The art of picking up the phone, having a proper conversation, and most importantly giving advice and taking instructions seems to be fading.
Is it time for some conveyancers to pause and ask, are we always putting our clients first, or just playing legal one-upmanship with people’s most valuable and stressful transactions?
Clients don’t need argument winners; they need sound advice. And it starts with doing the most basic thing, asking the client what they want.
It may be old-fashioned (not the first time that has been levelled at me) to say, but perhaps the real lost art is picking up the phone, giving balanced advice, and then asking the one question that should always come before any response, “What would you like me to do?”
Rob Hailstone is founder and CEO of Bold Legal Group. These discussions are one of many taken from the BLG Forum, a voluntary forum of over 2,000 professionals covering a range of conveyancing-related topic topics with input from compliance experts, SDLT experts and HMLR.
