I saw a post this week from someone in the conveyancing world for whom I have a great deal of respect. The post was about how his son had been buying a property and was told by the estate agents that there were fees to pay for mortgage services. As I read it, I knew which agents would be responsible… and I was right!
Last week, I was contacted by a former client, asking me to act in the sale of his property. I recognised his name but not the address of the house he was selling. I told him that I had no recollection of the address and asked if I had acted when he bought it. His answer:
“no, I sold the house that you had previously bought for me and got this one; the estate agents told me it would be quicker to use their recommended lawyers even though I wanted to instruct you, but they would not let me and told me that my offer on the house I wanted would not be accepted unless I used their lawyer. They told me it would be quicker and that they would be able to push it through for me.”
And as you will guess, none of what they had told him was true.
One of the issues is the public simply do not know about this. It is likely that their first port of call when buying a house is an estate agent and whether or not the client has bought or sold a house before, they are going to trust that estate agent. And why wouldn’t they?
Other than hearsay about how agents cannot be trusted, many house movers will trust the agent; they have probably had three agents around to their house and then picked one to look after them. It could be the cheapest agent, it could be the agent who intends to market the house for the most money, it could be someone recommended to them. But they need to trust that agent who is acting for them in selling the most expensive thing that they own. And by the time that they realise that the agent has made that recommendation for a very large referral fee, it could be too late to change.
I completed a house move last week. My client was recommended to me by her neighbour. The chain had been in place since March, a chain with five properties in it. My client had been persuaded by the agent to use that firm we all know – the use of the words ‘Further observation’ is the clue! – and nothing had really happened. I stepped in, had the instruction transferred to me and we completed within four weeks.
The thing is that until the public have a bad experience either with a conveyancer or an agent, they do not know what good is. We need to market ourselves better – pay more money and get a better service – yes, you knew I would come back to the fee point!
So many house movers have a negative experience – we need to make it more positive for them. Think about how excited they are at the start of a transaction but how that excitement dissipates and how by completion, they are just glad to get it over with. Let’s make it a better experience for them!
This is written by a real high street conveyancer who wishes to remain anonymous. Read more in Today’s Conveyancer every week.
