I had far fewer emails each day this week than I have had for ages. Is this a good thing?
I did not have to work on Saturday which, when I thought about it, led me to realise that other than the holiday weekends (Easter, May and August Bank Holidays etc.), I have worked consistently at weekends for ages.
When you think back and realise that the boom started just after we came out of the first lockdown and then the SDLT holiday, that is nearly three years. Three years of relentless work, burning the midnight oil, getting up with the birds, all in the aim of keeping clients happy.
I understand why so many older conveyancing solicitors are leaving the profession – it is a hard job and has become so much harder over the last three years.
It’s difficult to manage the expectations of all of those involved in a transaction when they do not want to wait and believe that buying a house should be done quickly and as efficiently as buying a book from Amazon.
They think it should be instant – and we all know that reading a lease and digesting its terms before preparing a full report on it is not something which can be done by artificial intelligence alone.
It needs human input – and not just any human input, but the input of someone who has the understanding and experience of what is in a lease and what should not be in a lease, what current guidance says, and then writing all of that increasingly technical information in a way that a client can understand.
The nuances of conveyancing are lost in many transactions where we are asked to answer unnecessary enquiries, and the depth of knowledge which a conveyancer now needs is staggering.
So, receiving less emails on a daily basis may show that the market is slowing, but for many conveyancers, that is not necessarily a bad thing.
It is a time to regroup and think about the profession and the work we have been doing for clients for the past three years and what we have achieved in some difficult circumstances. I know I have said this before, but we all need to pat ourselves on the back for a job well done. We have helped to keep the economy running and that should never be forgotten.
As I get older and more weary, I realise that the housing market has money thrown at it by successive governments to keep the economy afloat – and we have not let them down. For all of the criticism we receive on LinkedIn and other fora, we have got through the last three years, but have been worn down in the process.
Perhaps fewer emails will help us think about where we want to go with conveyancing and new ways of dealing with things.
This is written by a real high street conveyancer who wishes to remain anonymous. Read more in Today’s Conveyancer every week.
