For as long as I can remember (and that is a long time!), it has been standard to charge less on the sale of a property. But why? Even now a review of other firms’ websites to see their costs, it is always cheaper on a sale than a purchase. I can only assume that historically it was because there was less work on a sale, but let’s talk about my two favourite subjects – costs and enquiries.
Why should it be cheaper on a sale now?
Thinking back, it is only in the last three or four years that we have started to receive many queries on a sale. There have always been enquiries but never as many as we now get. I liked preparing a contract and sending it to the buyer’s solicitor to see what they could think to ask me. There may be documents to follow once received from the Land Registry but we did not get the pages and pages of enquiries that we now get (and just on that – how those enquiries arrive is enough to make you want to charge more! – do they come in different colours, by letter, in boxes? – there is no agreed or set way of asking questions).
And so many of the enquiries are non-CQS compliant – you just need to do the CQS course on ‘Raising enquiries’ to understand why certain enquiries should not be asked. I often see on Linkedin conveyancers complaining about enquiries and quoting parts of the CQS course – and I know that I have mentioned this before, but let me say it again – do not ask me about the plan as the contract sets out what a seller needs to prove about the boundaries, and states that ‘the seller need not…prove the exact boundaries of the property or prove who owns fences, ditches, hedges or walls. Do not ask me about the covenants – unless you are concerned that there has been a breach of a covenant and you want to discuss that specifically with me.
And when I receive a title with no Charges Register, I along with many others of you, think that there must be something missing. I check the filed plan to see if there is a right of way; I check the estate agents ’ Particulars of sale to see if there is a shared accessway between the houses. We are so used to receiving unnecessary enquiries that we have adapted our thoughts when reviewing draft contract documents on a purchase to make sure that we are not missing the obvious on what could be the cleanest title!
So with all of these pages and pages of enquiries, many of which are not CQS compliant and others which are just nonsensical (I wanted to say stupid but that sounded rude!), why charge less on a sale? In my perfect conveyancing world, we could charge the buyer’s solicitor per question – how many unnecessary questions would they then raise?
One Response
On a sale I end up effectively ‘title checking’ the matter anyway; a) Looking at the title and Rightmove when instructed b) going through the protocol forms before raising enquiries c) editing the deeds and checking for errors prior to submitting the contract d) dealing with the lenders e) dealing with the enquiries and looking back through the title, history of the property etc. for answers. Then there is exchanging, completing, making payments, scheduling, closing the file, sorting out the mortgage, checking ID etc. I think as much work goes in a sale as does goes into a purchase now and both should be charged the same. Not to mention more correspondence with clients on a sale chasing slow buyers. At least when I am acting for a buyer, I can manage their expectations better as they hold a lot of the cards.
Not to mention; when there is no charges register, dealing with enquiries from the buyers conveyancer relating to restrictive covenants and placing indemnity provisions in the TR1…