Diary of a high street conveyancer; 23rd May 2022

Alongside discussions regarding additional enquiries, there are also discussions about further digitisation of the conveyancing process.

I think that digitisation is a good idea and we only have to think about how the Land Registry Portal has changed the daily working life of a conveyancer to know that there are things that can be done to speed up the process. But the one thing that we always have to remember is that we deal with people. Every person is different; every property is different, and regardless of how much digitisation will make the process quicker and easier, once you throw people into the mix, it does make it harder.

Some clients engage with the process, those that fill in forms and reply to  enquiries quickly do make the work easier; others do not. I say to my clients that if they work with me and do what I ask them to do when I need/ask them to do it, we will make so much more progress.

But when you have people, they can fall out. Buyers are paying more and more for a property as there are so few properties out there. The seller wants to sell for as much as possible, especially in a market like the one we have now. But I have heard some really bad stories of where buyers and sellers have fallen out in the course of the transaction, and the seller, believing that they are the most powerful, have then taken revenge on completion. So as light relief this week, here are a few horror stories.

• The removal of a very lovely stain glassed window on the landing.
• A smell of rotting fish which could not be located but was found to be a packet of prawns stuffed behind a radiator.
• A devil sculpture left in a wardrobe.
• The van, driven by the seller, knocking down the front wall as he reversed onto the drive.

And my “favourite”;

• A disappointed seller who “planted” cress seeds on the living room carpet a week before completion and watered them every day to the day before completion so that they would then grow.

Let me know if you have any similar tales …

This is written by a real high street conveyancer who wishes to remain anonymous. Read more in Today’s Conveyancer every week.