Report suggests conveyancers are to blame for property transaction delays

Report suggests conveyancers are to blame for property transaction delays

30% of people recently surveyed, by When You Move, claim that their property completions were delayed by an average of 6.4 weeks because their conveyancers were out of the office.

Whilst there are many reasons why the conveyancing process is moving as fast as it can, many have been left reeling at the unforeseen, preventable delays caused during the conveyancing process.

The frustrations felt by respondents were only exacerbated further with 25% not informed when their legal service provider would be returning.

24% found that their conveyancers were away on holiday or taking personal leave. Additionally, 27% of these respondents believed that their case was not worked on during the time the legal service provider was away; this led to additional delays of over five weeks.

Around a third were aggrieved that they were forced to speed up the process by contacting their conveyancers for regular updates and forcing deadlines to be met.

For many, the conveyancing process has left a negative indelible mark on the home buying experience, with over a quarter refusing to use the legal service provider again because they perceived the customer service as poor.

Simon Bath, chief executive officer of When You Move, said: “Ensuring transactions are completed with greater efficiency, transparency and speed is fundamental to delivering a consumer-focused service for all those buying and selling homes in the UK,’ said Simon Bath, chief executive officer of When You Move.

“Consumers should no longer be put off by the lengthy conveyancing process and the conveyancing industry should be able to stick to its promise of completing transactions by the projected date whether your conveyancer is away or not.”

“Digitalising the process will create a central hub for all communication, document storage and provide real-time updates for all parties meaning it is not dependent on physical presence to progress. We are living in a time where we are able to track every item and we should be able to do the same for the most important transactions of our lives.”

Many are quick to judge and blame conveyancers for delays in transaction completions, however the research also highlighted that 31% of respondents experienced delays of over eight weeks because of other reasons.

Do you think reports like this are representative and balanced? Could more be done to prevent some of these delays?

 

Martin Parrin

Martin is a Senior Content Writer for Today’s Conveyancer, Today’s Wills and Probate, Today’s Legal Cyber Risk and Today's Family Lawyer Having qualified as a teacher, Martin previously worked as a Secondary English Teacher that responsible for Head of Communications. After recently returning to the North West from Guernsey in the Channel Islands, Martin has left teaching to start a career in writing and pursue his lifelong passion with the written word.

5 Comments

  • Why does the article blame conveyancers, and then as an afterthought say a higher proportion of respondents blame other factors?!

  • Having worked in property law for nearly 50 years, I do not believe a conveyancer going on holiday adds five weeks to the process and I have never experienced no work being done on files while a conveyancer is away. Conveyancers should, of course, not have holidays and I frequently have not. I note this survey has been done by what looks like an estate agent based software product as an advertisement. Setting of specious and often ludicrous deadlines should stop. Estate agents should learn the process and why the steps which are taken are done and everyone involved should work together not indulge in huge point scoring blame passing.

  • When You Move is a middleman getting paid by referral fees and used by estate agents. What a surprise that they are saying that delays are caused by people outside their payment circle.

    And with a average transaction taking 3 months, why is it a surprise to anyone that, shock/horror, someone might take a day off during that period? And how exactly would that add 5 weeks to a transaction?

    This sounds like a re-hashed press release

  • Alternative headline: Report Suggests Firm Has Ulterior Motive For Publishing Article Slating Conveyancers.

  • Absolute rubbish

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