No wonder conveyancing is so slow

alchemist.1

ThePants999 wrote: »

You say "obviously", but it's not at all obvious to me.
- It's a bad idea productivity-wise to delay quick actions. If something arrives on your plate that would take less than two minutes (like, say, attaching some documents to an email), it's much better for your overall productivity to do it immediately rather than schedule it for later.
- Prioritising shouldn't be a simple matter of "cases that are closest to completion first", it should be "anything that's on a critical path first". By definition, you are adding delay when you sit on tasks that are on the critical path, and you are not when you sit on other tasks.

Indeed it would take two minutes. It' not going to be scheduling for later but working through the volume of emails/phone calls/ other elements of the work.

In general, people are not prepared to pay for a level of service they expect.

ThePants999

marksoton wrote: »

No, a waste of time is if there isn't a lender prepared to offer you the funds you require.And until you get a formal mortgage offer you don't know there is.

I emphatically disagree. Just because it isn't a 100% certainty doesn't mean it's a significant risk and worth holding up the rest of the process for. In any case, it's my decision - if I'm willing to pay the solicitor to get on with it even in the absence of a mortgage offer, they should be willing to do so. Fortunately, they are.

marksoton

ThePants999 wrote: »

I emphatically disagree. Just because it isn't a 100% certainty doesn't mean it's a significant risk and worth holding up the rest of the process for. In any case, it's my decision - if I'm willing to pay the solicitor to get on with it even in the absence of a mortgage offer, they should be willing to do so. Fortunately, they are.

Ok. Let's agree to disagree. But just remember that solicitor isn't just working for you....

ThePants999

TBagpuss wrote: »

The point you are missing is that pretty much all of the things the solicitor / conveyancer will be working on will be 'on the critical path' for the people concerned. .

I don't think this is true. Taking this specific example, once the initial documentation gets to my solicitor, she'll then (a) kick off searches, (b) work on amendments to the contract, (c) send some additional queries to the seller's solicitor. I don't mind if she puts (b) on the back burner while she handles another client's work, and I don't mind if the seller's solicitor gives (c) a low priority, because it's likely they'll still both be sorted before the local authority returns the searches. Generally speaking, only one thing is going to be on the critical path at a time for a given transaction, and often it won't be with any of the solicitors. So when it is, I'd like them to prioritise it. If that's really arrogance, then guilty as charged I guess...?