Are there any plans to update the antiquated process of house buying in England?

davidggreen

I am really keen to understand why the house buying process in England is so insecure and stressful and what can be changed to make the process more efficient. Dealing with solicitors is painful! Lockdown has opened up so many opportunities to work smarter from home and drive efficiencies, so why can't solicitors adopt a more modern approach to their working practice? Let's say the seller and the buyer, together with their respective solicitors and agents had a Zoom call for an hour (with a decent agenda). Although the conversation may not be legally binding, notes could be taken about fixtures, fittings, boundaries etc. and written up. This would also provide an opportunity to propose exchange and completion dates. Being generous, a week later, the documents could be sent over digitally for signatures. I am fortunate enough to know my buyer and my seller in my current chain which makes it interesting to hear feedback from solicitors that often contradicts the facts and always weeks behind what I already know. I would love to process map each stage and truly understand how long searches actually take and what is the process, couldn't houses have a passport type document that is continually updated? Maybe there are things happening already to improve what I and many consider to be an out-dated process that increases work and stress for all concerned. I would be keen to hear anyone else's thoughts on this and maybe provide a more balanced view as mine could be wrong. 

davidmcn

davidggreen said:

I would love to process map each stage and truly understand how long searches actually take and what is the process,  

Maybe wait until you've gone through the process and gained a better understanding of it first. I suspect you're under various misapprehensions as to how things work.

davidggreen

Thanks for your reply. I am not a first-time buyer so understand the buying process from my side. I have had similar experiences in particular with slow solicitors that poorly communicate each time. I am keen to understand the process from a solicitor perspective and to understand if they think improvements could be made or are they very happy with paper and post and 72-hour replies. 

greatcrested

davidggreen said:

....I would love to process map each stage and truly understand how long searches actually take and what is the process, ...... I would be keen to hear anyone else's thoughts on this and maybe provide a more balanced view as mine could be wrong. 

Do you think no one has ever considered this? Over the last 50+ years, the government, the Law Society, and other relevant bodies have regularly reviewed, and improved, the process.

If you wish to 'process map each stage' I suggest you read some of the websites, books and articles on the subject. You can easily find sources aimed at either the lay amateur, or the legal professional, depending how detailed you want your understanding to become.

davidggreen

greatcrested said:

If you wish to 'process map each stage' I suggest you read some of the websites, books and articles on the subject. You can easily find sources aimed at either the lay amateur, or the legal professional, depending how detailed you want your understanding to become.

Interestingly, many of the articles I have read do not match the actual experiences people receive when dealing with solicitors. I will read on!

davidmcn

davidggreen said:

Thanks for your reply. I am not a first-time buyer so understand the buying process from my side.

But not "how long searches actually take and what is the process"? What do you know?

Taking all-party meetings as an example, for starters you've got the practical issue of how you schedule those - difficult enough to get the two conveyancers to block out an hour or so, never mind assume that their clients will also be available (many of whom have "proper" jobs not allowing them to join during the day) or that they even fancy the idea of attending such a meeting. Plus at what stage are you doing this and what is the agenda? Enquiries might not be ready, answers won't necessarily be readily to hand. Fine if you've actually got something to negotiate and all the relevant people are there, but what if e.g. buyers need to run something past their lenders?

JessJ23425

I'm curious to the reasons why the onus isn't on the seller to get property information about their own house before going to market. Would this not speed up the actual transaction ten fold?

Buyer obtains a survey and searches for their property through a conveyancer then it goes up for sale, once the chain forms it's then just enquiries? From doing a bit of googling it seems this is the case in some countries and it certainly helps.

eddddy

davidggreen said:

Thanks for your reply. I am not a first-time buyer so understand the buying process from my side. I have had similar experiences in particular with slow solicitors that poorly communicate each time. I am keen to understand the process from a solicitor perspective and to understand if they think improvements could be made or are they very happy with paper and post and 72-hour replies. 

The reason is because market pressures have turned conveyancing into a low cost, high volume business.

Conveyancing warehouses started offering a low cost 'product' with low levels of customer service, and in order to compete, traditional solicitors have had to reduce their prices, change their style of working, and reduce their levels of customer service.

If both buyer and seller agreed to pay their solicitors on an hourly rate basis, I'm sure they'd be happy to have endless Zoom calls.


It's very similar to the airline business - all air travel used to be a luxury activity with very high levels of customer service. Then the budget airlines came along offering much lower prices, and appalling customer service. Many traditional airlines had to reduce their levels of customer service, in order to offer similarly low prices.

GDB2222

The answer is simple. People shop around for the very cheapest solicitors to do the job. A typical bill for the legal work is £700-1000. The rest is disbursement, vat etc. That’s not enough for a fully qualified professional to do the work, so there’s usually one qualified person supervising lots of staff. There’s not enough money in it for staff to have any slack time, so every item of correspondence goes in a queue to be looked at later. And the work queue has to be kept full, or the work is running at a loss. 

davidmcn

JessJ23425 said:

I'm curious to the reasons why the onus isn't on the seller to get property information about their own house before going to market. Would this not speed up the actual transaction ten fold?

Buyer obtains a survey and searches for their property through a conveyancer then it goes up for sale, once the chain forms it's then just enquiries? From doing a bit of googling it seems this is the case in some countries and it certainly helps.

Home Report in Scotland includes a survey (and seller's questionnaire) which certainly saves all the surprises we read about here arising from surveys weeks/months after offers are accepted. Searches come after offer, but everyone in Scotland uses the private search providers who don't have the same backlogs as the English councils.

GDB2222

davidmcn said:

JessJ23425 said:

I'm curious to the reasons why the onus isn't on the seller to get property information about their own house before going to market. Would this not speed up the actual transaction ten fold?

Buyer obtains a survey and searches for their property through a conveyancer then it goes up for sale, once the chain forms it's then just enquiries? From doing a bit of googling it seems this is the case in some countries and it certainly helps.

Home Report in Scotland includes a survey (and seller's questionnaire) which certainly saves all the surprises we read about here arising from surveys weeks/months after offers are accepted. Searches come after offer, but everyone in Scotland uses the private search providers who don't have the same backlogs as the English councils.

Similar packs were tried in England, quite a while ago. It was unpopular. I suspect that this was because it increased the cost of advertising a property and estate agents thought it damaged their business. I suspect the reality was that it made it harder to get instructions but easier to guide a sale through to completion.