Today’s Conveyancer is conducting a brief survey to collect information on the well-known issues related to additional enquiries in the conveyancing process.
In it’s third year, the survey builds on previous trends and asks readers to share their thoughts and attitudes toward pre-contract enquiries over the past 12 months.
Please take two minutes to answer the below questions.
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4 responses
The Law Society needs to start stepping up in terms of the enforcement of the CQS protocol and staff need to understand that asking a question doesn’t necessarily shield one from negligence, the Mishcon De Reya case is a prime example. There are still too many enquiries without any application of thought.
Like the correspondent above I think that many pre-contract enquiries are made without any thought. I have had ones where it is asked “Is the property near a train station and is there any noise?” “Is the property below a flight route and is there any noise?” I know that these type of questions concern a buyer but is it the job of a conveyancer to answer questions like these?
The Building Safety Act 2022 has added another layer of complexity to the pre-contact questions. It is causing all sorts of trouble – we had one question about the height of a block of flats, one floor was below ground level so this made it four levels but someone else insisted it was five so it came within the Act.
The TA6 has now gone from 16 pages to 32 pages with some of the questions a client won’t know how to answer so will obviously turn to the conveyancer to answer them! What does the conveyancer do in those circumstances, charge for answering them and will there be liability on behalf of the conveyancer if they don’t answer them?
The job of a conveyancer is getting more and more complex but seem to be getting more blame for holding up transactions. This is certainly not the case and unless conveyancers are given a fair hearing no one will want to do the job in future.
I do think the whole issue of enquiries is misleading.
What it really does is highlight the “computer says no” mentality of a certain breed of conveyancer today who might know everything on paper, but nothing in practice. I had a classic example recently where somebody spent several emails outlining CQS guidelines on enquiries, time which could simply have been spent sending them all to her client. When she did deign to answer a few she had actually mis-read the original enquiries and answered them wrongly. Just a total waste of time that did not benefit her client (after all the most important person in the transaction) at all.
Experienced, able conveyancers simply get on with the job, it is the new generation who need to concentrate on doing the same, rather than putting everything on social media that happens in the course of a day which they do not agree with. Therein lies the problem.
Unfortunately until the SRA and the CLC supports it members, the situation will not get any better. Insurance premiums are going up, regulatory responsibility is going up, the quality of training and the amount of qualified members is going down, time frames are going up and the amount of funds available to firms to improve matters is going down. There is no wonder why conveyancing is treated with the disdain it is when we feel like we are the bottom rung of the ladder.