Conveyancers - how helpful should they be?

Gazump

Just received a report back from their searches.

Lots of information there.... lots of unexplained information. Is it their duty to advise as well as inform?

Basically theres a few contradictions, which I suspect is a result of copy and pasting standard text. Also they request "required" documents from the seller's solicitors only to get a reply of "no" or "N/A" and it seems they have left it at that.

Problem is that there is a lot of info here which is just over my head which I don't understand. I've gone back to them enquiring about pretty much every point! And this is like 3 pages worth.

Am I just being overconcerned or are they not doing their job?

I knew buying property was complicated, but not this complicated!

Richard_Webster

A conveyancer needs to explain stuff but obviously has to balance the extent to which he does that. No explanations at all mean that the buyer doesn't really know what the papers are about. On the other hand there can be such information that the average person is confused.

I would not explain the significance of every answer to every question, but only those that I consider are significant for an average buyer. Some buyer's solicitors use standard questionnaires with many questions that are not relevant to a particular property. For instance, they might have a leasehold section that asks about service charges and so forth - but if it is a leasehold house rather than a flat that is being sold, and the only payment is £3 per year ground rent, the seller's solicitor is going to be understandably cross the questions have not been deleted and put will put "N/A" to questions asking for service charge accounts!

Having said all that it will probably be worthwhile phoning the conveyancer for clarification and he may then explain why there is nothing startling about the particular answers. If I produce a report with copies of documents that I think an average client should understand, then as nobody is completely average, it is quite understandable if they sometimes have queries and telephone for an explanation. That is what your conveyancer is there to do.