There is still a discourse on LinkedIn about the relationship between solicitors and estate agents. It is a difficult relationship because although both want the same outcome, we start the journey to the finish line at different times and have different roles.
But I think that it is important that estate agents appreciate that conveyancing is done very differently in firms, ranging from the ‘hold my hand’ conveyancing to the tick box culture.
This was brought home to me this week following an incident involving a shed.
My client was selling a property with a shed in the back garden. The buyers’ solicitor raised a query regarding a breach of restrictive covenant as the 1985 Transfer deed stated that there was to be no building in the garden without the consent of the original developer. This is a very common covenant.
Having a large firm on the other side who needed an answer to tick a box made this very difficult. There was the initial discussion regarding whether the covenant was enforceable, with my client telling me that the shed was there when she bought the property in the 1990s. She told me it was a shed that was falling apart.
The buyer’s conveyancer wanted an indemnity policy for breach of covenant. My client was not prepared to waste money on a policy . Is a shed a building? The buyer’s conveyancer asked the same question again, and offered to obtain a policy at my client’s expense. The estate agent thought the seller (yes, his own client who was paying his bill) was being difficult in not agreeing to cover the cost of a policy.
This rumbled on all week… and I laughed out loud on Friday when I received an email from my client with the heading “SHEDGATE,” in which she told me that the buyer was going to come to the property at the weekend and remove the shed, take a photograph of it dismantled, and then at the tip! He also told her that he had intended to remove it anyway and was proposing to install a new shed after completion!
It was not the solicitors nor the estate agents who resolved the shed dilemma but the buyer who was so fed up with what he saw as the lack of progress due to a shed he didn’t even want that he took matters into his own hands!
No doubt, you are nodding your head as you read this as we get these types of scenarios on a daily basis but I had to admire my client for the humour she brought to what was in fact a stressful time, and I was glad that “Shedgate” came to a happy ending!
This is written by a real high street conveyancer who wishes to remain anonymous. Read more in Today’s Conveyancer every week.
