I, along with all of you, hate it when I get pages and pages of enquiries , many of which are not property specific, many of which are not relevant and the majority of which just waste my time. In the past, I have received those enquiries where you look at the computer screen and just laugh at the question before realising that the buyers’ conveyancer will require a reply.
So, how about this ….
Let’s set up a scoring system and then at the end of the letter sending the replies, we could score the other side. So for example, you receive a letter with the usual culprit enquiries – confirm ID, confirm boundary on plan, confirm compliance with restrictive covenants…Well, we all know what to say in relation to ID (not needed, compliance with Protocol and money laundering processes) so that scores zero. We know what to answer in relation to the plan (consider the Condition in the contract which deals with the extent of the property being sold) so that scores zero.
Restrictive covenants – well you could just refer back to the Property Information form on the basis that if no communication received from any other party, then likely that there has been no breach, but beware as there may not be any enforceable covenants, or there could be a potential breach if the seller has done some building works without consent – so that query could score a point.
So at the end of the letter, (and based on my three queries above) we could say you have raised, on this occasion, your firm has scored one out of three – and that one is dubious.
Now I would never expect a firm to score zero as there is likely to be some relevant enquiries but the lower the score, the better
New style ranking for firms on sales – who is with me?
2 responses
There has to be any irony, if not a correlation between the amount of pointless enquiries increasing while earnings falling.
The whole ‘we don’t get paid enough’ argument; well, if less queries of an utterly pointless nature we’re raised then the time per client would fall. Therefore immediately increasing revenue per hour spent.
I know maths isn’t supposed be a strong point in the sector but…..
Managers of law firms – Conveyancing is king for cash on a monthly basis. If a Conveyancing matter has not completed within 12 weeks from instruction, are these matters being looked at and processes being put in place to decrease those time frames? If I ran a law firm, I would be horrified if my income was taking longer than 12 weeks to extract. I would certainly not be allowing my staff (for example) to wait 4 weeks to raise enquiries from the issuing of contract paperwork as is happening on far too many cases. I find it rather odd that business are rather accepting of the fact that matters are taking so long, they seem not to be bothered about cashflow and are not making any effort or attempts to improve matters. Some of the practices happening in 2024 would certainly have not been allowed when I was training.