Is it me or is LinkedIn becoming nastier? What happened to all the #bekind words?
All I seem to see on LinkedIn is agents berating conveyancers , conveyancers berating other conveyancers, conveyancers complaining about agents. Is this what we want the public to see?
And I had personal experience of this about three weeks ago which made me feel quite sick.
I was involved in a transaction where the sellers were represented by a large licensed conveyancing practice. The property is leasehold so I needed to see the most up to date statement from the managing agents as well as a completion statement from the sellers’ conveyancer. I held signed documents and monies but was waiting for the completion statement.
I had been asking for it for days… I received the statement from the managing agents via the buyers’ conveyancer, but no completion statement and began to wonder if they wanted me to draft it. I asked again for a copy but had not received it by the Friday afternoon which meant we could not exchange contracts before the weekend.
Now, I like my clients to go into the weekend before a proposed completion date knowing whether or not they will be moving – but I could not exchange contracts without the statement. I hear you all ask why? Ordinarily, I would have done so but I’d had such issues throughout the transaction and when I calculated the figures, they were significantly different from what had been produced by the sellers’ conveyancer and unless there was agreement on the figures, my client would have been considerably out of pocket. I asked and asked for the statement but to no avail. We were due to complete but had still not exchanged, and the estate agent thought it would be a good idea to go on LinkedIn and write about it.
And that is when you read a post and know it is about your transaction. Cue the usual ‘pile on’ by all those outside of the situation who simply don’t know what has been going on… and quite frankly it made me feel sick. How do you defend yourself?
I would have loved to have written about what was really going on behind the scenes; all those things the estate agents do not know about that concern your client and are bound by confidentiality, and the errors I had encountered up to that point. But no – it turned into a free for all. And the attacks on the unknown conveyancers were completely unjustified – to the extent I have not been able to look at social media for some time. I do not feel I can defend my position without people thinking they can have a go at me online.
And then last week I saw a post from another conveyancer complaining about the firm on the other side. Fair play to the one comment from someone who had worked there and sought to defend the firm saying we on the outside do not know what it is like and we should not judge or write about what we do not know.
I agree. No one knows what had gone on in my transaction; I do not need others to say ‘this is what the buyers’ conveyancer should be doing!’ I know what I should be doing, but sometimes the circumstances dictate otherwise.
So I think we all need a reminder to be kind and respectful to each other. This job is hard enough without us all criticising each other without knowing what is really going on.
This is written by a real high street conveyancer who wishes to remain anonymous. Read more in Today’s Conveyancer every week.
4 responses
There was one EA recently on Linkedin boasting that he’d been banned by conveyancers from contacting them but he didn’t care. It was a badge of honour. And a few of his friends joined in. He hadn’t had an update.
Confidentiality is the cornerstone of the Solicitor profession. “But I only want an update??” isn’t the key to an exception.
Commentary on Linkedin can be very black and white. Incident described and then all EAs, brokers, conveyancers are slammed.
Life is more nuanced. Conveyancing is more nuanced.
#bekind
Most of this stress, pressure and anger comes about from the target completion date.
You can read between the lines here and clearly see that despite not being ready to exchange. Despite there being no solid, reliable, dependable basis for it. We have all the pressure that goes with a target. A target that should not be there.
If everybody made exchange the target instead of stupidly setting completion as a target much of this stress would dissipate.
If you had a minimum period in-between ex & comp. Plus simply had zero discussion on a completion date until ALL parties confirmed they’re ready to exchange. The pressure build up would be there, but less.
And if you can’t figure out why it would be less, you shouldn’t be working in this field.
You’re all authors of your own misfortune. Which means you are all setting yourselves up for this stress.
EA’s & Conveyancers. It’s bonkers. It could be so much better, less stressful and better managed.
Forgive me if I get this wrong, but I am not a conveyancer or estate agent, but when I last sold a house a few years ago I dealt separately with the estate agent and the solicitor, and apart from providing the solicitors with the buyers’ details and paying the estate agent’s fees at the end, they didn’t need to communicate with each other in terms of chasing matters; suffice to say a referral fee was not paid, so was it this that made the difference from estate agents that do chase?
If it is the chasing that seems to cause the animosity, and this is down to referral fees being involved, then surely the best thing to do is get rid of them!
Linkedin is a cesspool nowadays. What frustrates me is that it is the same people who always light the blue touch paper with comments to garner a reaction, then hideaway without commenting themselves. We all know who the worst posters are for that, either outside the profession or ‘disruptors’ who really shouldn’t be within a million miles of it. Yet these are people who tend to be asked to write articles by this and other sites as if they are representative of conveyancers in general. Okay they are basically clickbait, but that sort of thing creates a lot of frustration for conveyancers in general, we do not need outliers and trolls telling us how to do our jobs, or calling us dinosaurs.
I have thought for a long time the SRA and CLC should take action against anyone bringing the profession into disrepute on social media, or investigating those who make ridiculous boasts about how goo they are and everyone else is not. A lot of behaviour looks to be well outside the code of conduct requirements of both bodies. If that starts to happen we might see people think twice before they press the send button. And if people want to claim to speak for the profession as a whole while being rude to anyone they disagree with, make them subject to the same rules, you cannot have your cake and eat it.