The joy of being a conveyancing solicitor – but also the frustration of being a conveyancing solicitor – is that you never know what any day will bring. Take this as an example…
On Friday, I had my day planned in my head – well, I think we all do that to some extent, but knowing that something is bound to happen which will blow us off course!
Mid-morning, I had a telephone call from a solicitor acting for the seller of a property my client was buying. She told me that whereas we were hoping to exchange next week with completion in three weeks’ time (all nice and orderly with minimum amount of stress to the buyer and the seller), she was sorry to have to tell me that we were going to have to try and complete that day!
Yes, you read that right – that day!
It was the case that the seller had been unexpectedly taken ill and they did not expect her to survive the weekend. I said I would do what I could, but it was going to depend on my client and her plans.
Fortunately, my client was a cash buyer, so as long as she could get to the bank to transfer the full monies, we would be able to do this. So, long discussion with client – and you know how that would go:
“Well, if we don’t complete today, and the seller dies over the weekend, we will need to wait for a Grant of Probate to be issued, and with the backlogs at the Probate Registry this could take up to 10 weeks – and that is if the Estate is simple.”
My client was incredibly pragmatic and sensible which did make my life easier, and after receiving the final completion statement from me, she went to the bank as instructed and transferred the full monies.
We managed to complete, but the seller’s solicitor obviously had to be sure that the seller had not died that morning – it was quite fraught for my client, and I was thankful that she had not been awkward about it.
But this shows that life as a conveyancer does not follow a strict routine – there is no set time for anything, and we have to be prepared for the curveballs which are thrown at us. We have to think on our feet, we are constantly prioritising, and what we think is important and urgent becomes less so when the circumstances of a house sale force us to take control of a situation to achieve the best outcome for all parties.
This is why we should be respected; this is why we need to be paid more for what we do; and this is why, when the market next falls, we need to keep our prices high so that the public continue to respect us for what we do.
This is written by a real high street conveyancer who wishes to remain anonymous. Read more in Today’s Conveyancer every week.
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One Response
Dear High Street Conveyancer
You admit your prices are high. Do you honestly expect to gain more respect from the public by keeping your prices high and possibly increasing them further as you often suggest? You only have to look around you to see how much respect companies earn (utilities, etc) from the public when prices rise. Your logic would appear similar to a garage giving a quote for work to be done on a car with a completion date for that work, then during the course of that work further items crop up which need repair – so it’s reasonable that the garage charges you for the extra repairs, with your permission of course, but not reasonable to increase their hourly rate at the same time, unless of course it becomes essential to pay an employee overtime rates to stick to the timeframe, again with your permission of course.
Also, I would suggest that as “life as a conveyancer does not follow a strict routine” that adds to the job variety and make work life more interesting. Perhaps a career change to Tesco/Aldi/Lidl would make life for predictable, okay the (financial) rewards aren’t so good.