In March’s edition of Estate Agent Today, Eddie Goldsmith talks about how conveyancing needs to catch up with the rest of commerce.
Excluding that privileged minority of internal staff or family/close friends, the vast majority of people find the reality of conveyancing very difficult. Used to the digital world they enter the analogue when it comes to conveyancing. They find themselves facing an absolute barrage of unfamiliar papers, unintelligible forms to complete, hard copy questionnaires to print out, fill in and then post back, and then…silence.
They are now in the system and they soon realise that they are going to have to wait a long time – 16-18 weeks before they get a date to move into their new home. Even then, they won’t know for certain if that is going to happen until potentially the actual day of completion.
In the meantime, their stress is exacerbated through what seems to be a wall of silence – built by their conveyancers who are difficult to get hold of. And, when they do manage to speak to them, are at best sympathetic but unable to help them, or at worst impossible to speak to and quite frankly unmoved by the emotional stress which the consumer is suffering.
Our consumer, who has fought tooth and nail with 20 other home buyers to secure their dream house, can literally spend weeks worrying that the seller will pull out and they will not only lose their hard-earned money already spent, but be back on the trail of house hunting again.
It all boils down to a toxic mix and something that needs to be solved