I’m sometimes noted as being downbeat and irritated – apologies if that is how my diary musings come across. It’s just the frustrations of every day conveyancing which sometimes wear me down.
So, with this in mind, I thought I would give you six examples of when I’m really irritated and annoyed. Please feel free to add your own daily irritations in the comments.
6. Do not leave your initial ID and AML checks until just before exchange of contracts. I know that many of us redo some checks when we receive deposit monies but don’t just start those checks when you know everyone is keen to exchange contracts .
5. When I call you to discuss a transaction, please speak to me or call me back. I have to admit that one of my biggest irritations is when a receptionist or secretary comes back and says: “Mr Smith has told me to tell you that…”. How do you know why I’m calling? Why am I not worthy of a conversation? Why am I told to put my query in an email when I know that it could be handled so much quicker with a conversation?
4. And then following on from number five, a big annoyance is the email sent to the firm where the conveyancer has better things to do than discuss an urgent transaction with you and you get a return email telling me that the turnaround time for responding to emails is three to five working days. JUST TALK TO ME!
3. When you email me to say that you want me to review my answers to enquiries 5(a) and 6(f). Just tell me what those enquires are rather than expecting me to waste my time trawling back through all of the emails to try and find the initial enquiries and my responses.
2. When I send you my initial letter asking you for your clients’ full names and addresses, please don’t just send me back your initial letter, confirming that you act for the seller or buyer with no further detail. I will assume that you have not read my letter and I then know that when I send you the contract, you are going to ask for it to be amended to show your clients’ full names. I have asked you for that detail – read my letter and give me that detail. Even better, just put the detail in your initial letter.
And at number one…
1. When you call me to exchange contracts and we’re going through the contract (sub-category irritation: I still don’t understand why we need to read every part of the contract. Just names, price, property and completion date will suffice, not all the detail about incumbrances), don’t tell me when we get to the deposit, that you are only holding a small deposit or that the deposit is being held by another firm in the chain and you don’t know which firm.
Whoever is holding that deposit will be holding it to my order and I would quite like to know who I have to contact should completion not take place. And why did you not tell me before that you were only going to offer me a smaller deposit? I now have to explain to my clients about the risks involved to see if they are prepared to proceed on that basis and everyone will start shouting at me, alleging that I’m holding up exchange of contracts.
What irritates you?
