Am I being impatient? Conveyancing.

Jennykins

Just a wee point of view from a conveyancer.....

I was working 14hrs a day for a ridiculously low salary and had too many clients to enable me to deal with things proactively. I would presume that if you are receiving emails after 5pm it is because it is a high volume low fee firm that you are dealing with and the conveyancer is trying their best to keep on top of everything and when the phones go off at 5pm it's the only time they have to deal with things.

Additionally, it is not deemed professional to simply email a yes or no reply you have to give more detail etc and as others have said this means getting your file, reading through it, trying to remember who you are (when dealing with 80 completions a month its pretty tough to remember the clients / properties) and giving you an answer that is least likely to illicit some form of reply that the conveyancer then also has to deal with (having already put the file away!)

Oh and faxing the lender - most lenders will not provide a written response (or sometimes any response) to a query that is phoned in. Everything has to be done in writing so that there is evidence on the file of what the lender has said (if there is a problem down the line they will try and blame the solicitor so there needs to be something from them on the file saying it's okay to proceed etc)

It was all too much for me in the end and I've left that firm (and indeed the legal profession) and moved on but I just wanted to pass on that sometimes it is not that they don't care, it's that they don't have time to deal with all the enquiries.

caeler

Jennykins thanks for that perspective. I've been continually frustrated with my conveyancer and it often feels like she hasn't read my file and doesn't know any of my particulars but now I know why! I did suspect she had too much on due to the silly mistakes and things just not picked up. Problem is I'm desperate for information and exchange next week and things only seem to happen when I chase so I don't think I can change (although I now feel pretty bad!).

Jennykins

Awh no problem, I really hope you get things sorted out. I know how frustrating it is for clients to not know what is happening and I always wished I was allowed to explain the workload etc but the partners would have killed me if I let slip that things werent ideal workload wise so sadly many people I dealt with likely think I couldnt be bothered!!

I'd say you likely need to keep on top of them (despite everything I've said, I just wanted you to know that it may be that there are underlying reasons rather than not caring / not doing the job properly) as with high volume work it's inevitably the people that shout the loudest or the people that are the nicest that get dealt with first! I always really appreciated the emails that went along the lines of "I know you're really busy and I dont want to take up too much of your time but I'd be really grateful if you could tell me...." The other tactic is to complain and when the office manager and partners get involved you get bumped up the pile!!

Hope you manage to get everything organised. Really didnt want to make you feel bad, just wanted to give you the perspective from the other side!!

caeler

Everybody is just trying to do a job and this was a good reminder in what is generally a very stressful situation. I'm going to hang on in there, call daily, remain polite and hope I manage to exchange next week.

Bazshawkins

Jennykins wrote: »

Just a wee point of view from a conveyancer.....

I was working 14hrs a day for a ridiculously low salary and had too many clients to enable me to deal with things proactively. I would presume that if you are receiving emails after 5pm it is because it is a high volume low fee firm that you are dealing with and the conveyancer is trying their best to keep on top of everything and when the phones go off at 5pm it's the only time they have to deal with things.

Additionally, it is not deemed professional to simply email a yes or no reply you have to give more detail etc and as others have said this means getting your file, reading through it, trying to remember who you are (when dealing with 80 completions a month its pretty tough to remember the clients / properties) and giving you an answer that is least likely to illicit some form of reply that the conveyancer then also has to deal with (having already put the file away!)

Oh and faxing the lender - most lenders will not provide a written response (or sometimes any response) to a query that is phoned in. Everything has to be done in writing so that there is evidence on the file of what the lender has said (if there is a problem down the line they will try and blame the solicitor so there needs to be something from them on the file saying it's okay to proceed etc)

It was all too much for me in the end and I've left that firm (and indeed the legal profession) and moved on but I just wanted to pass on that sometimes it is not that they don't care, it's that they don't have time to deal with all the enquiries.

Nope, as I said in the original post we are using a solicitor who come higly recommended, are very highly thought of within the industry (have won awards etc) and the firm has been used by family before for similar work. They were among the most expensive quotes we received, and we got quotes from a wide range including the online low fee types.

I'm a bit more chilled about the whole thing now. Looks like we're on course to exchange in the coming weeks and complete in January some time. Our vendor has had an offer accepted as well now, so I think that has encouraged them to show a bit more urgency as their vendor apparently wants to get things done by early January and already has a vacant property to move in to.