The nervous wait to exchange....

  • Thread starter Thread starter noj
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Can someone just clarify what the lengthy parts of house conveyancing are? The way I see it most of the paperwork between the buyer and seller can be boxed off in say 2 weeks MAX if you have solicitors who are on the ball. It doesnt take long to put together memo's of sale, property fixings and fittings itemisations, property questionnaires, contract of sales. These things all can be produced and sorted with minimal time if you have proactive sellers and buyer.

In my mind (and I could very well be wrong) it is the searches and mortgage offers that mostly hold things up - So things mainly like this:
  • local authority searches
  • environmental searches
  • water and drainage search
I'm trying to understand why in 2022 things like this take so long, and why hasn't this process been digitised? Why does it take potentially several weeks to get local authority searches back for example? Similarly for water and environmental searches, for 75% of houses these kinds of things are highly unlikely to really change. I.e. up North you have to do a mining search, but its not as if a coal mine will have miraculously appeared near your home somewhere.

Mortgages are much improved and for the majority take around 2-3 weeks from application to approval providing there is nothing untoward.

But the rest just seems a bit archaic and intentionally inefficient. I dare say ALL of these requirements could be digitised and shortened to a matter of hours for acquisition rather than the weeks (and sometimes months) they are at the moment.

Again, my understanding of what is actually involved could be way off so hold my hands up if I'm missing something.
 
It’s because the whole process is about people utilisation, not good service.

The solicitors don’t want to be sat around doing nothing so they have a pipeline of work. When your stuff comes in it goes to the back of the queue.

Local authorities don’t want to have people sitting around doing nothing waiting for the next search request to come in so they’ll make sure they have a queue of requests to keep their people busy.

I agree there should be minimum SLAs but in reality they are meaningless without sanctions and no one is going to agree with that.

A lot of the work in Scotland is done upfront but that doesn’t really change how long it takes, you just do it before you go to market.
 
Just going through some renegotiation with the seller in terms of an allowance. Solicitor has emailed the bank around this, but they have a six day response time for post offer queries and changes. Ridiculously slow, they won't talk around any of it over the phone with us directly. Can the solicitor chase them over the phone to speed things up? Any first hand experience appreciated
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
It’s because the whole process is about people utilisation, not good service.

The solicitors don’t want to be sat around doing nothing so they have a pipeline of work. When your stuff comes in it goes to the back of the queue.

Local authorities don’t want to have people sitting around doing nothing waiting for the next search request to come in so they’ll make sure they have a queue of requests to keep their people busy.

I agree there should be minimum SLAs but in reality they are meaningless without sanctions and no one is going to agree with that.

A lot of the work in Scotland is done upfront but that doesn’t really change how long it takes, you just do it before you go to market.
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Yeh so that is what I am saying, why not save the Councils a boat load of money by automating the system. Everything is stored digitally already anyway, why not just make the process digital end-to-end?
 
Got the contracts signed and sent via email for my conveyansor to review.

I have requested for a simultaneous exchange and completion.

I want to try and get this wrapped up before Boris becomes PM for the 2nd time(kidding of course on this bit lol)
 
R.O.S.S.I said:
Can someone just clarify what the lengthy parts of house conveyancing are? The way I see it most of the paperwork between the buyer and seller can be boxed off in say 2 weeks MAX if you have solicitors who are on the ball. It doesnt take long to put together memo's of sale, property fixings and fittings itemisations, property questionnaires, contract of sales. These things all can be produced and sorted with minimal time if you have proactive sellers and buyer.

In my mind (and I could very well be wrong) it is the searches and mortgage offers that mostly hold things up - So things mainly like this:
  • local authority searches
  • environmental searches
  • water and drainage search
I'm trying to understand why in 2022 things like this take so long, and why hasn't this process been digitised? Why does it take potentially several weeks to get local authority searches back for example? Similarly for water and environmental searches, for 75% of houses these kinds of things are highly unlikely to really change. I.e. up North you have to do a mining search, but its not as if a coal mine will have miraculously appeared near your home somewhere.

Mortgages are much improved and for the majority take around 2-3 weeks from application to approval providing there is nothing untoward.

But the rest just seems a bit archaic and intentionally inefficient. I dare say ALL of these requirements could be digitised and shortened to a matter of hours for acquisition rather than the weeks (and sometimes months) they are at the moment.

Again, my understanding of what is actually involved could be way off so hold my hands up if I'm missing something.
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We tried to create a sane system where the seller was responsible for the searches, but the Tories chucked it in the bin in 2010.
 
If you think solicitors are bad, think how tough and expensive it was having to use two. One to sell my house in England and another to buy a in Scotland. I couldn't find one that specialised in the differing laws and processes of both countries and that wasn't booked up for 6 months. Thankfully the two I used were good and didn't give me many problems.
 
mid_gen said:
We tried to create a sane system where the seller was responsible for the searches, but the Tories chucked it in the bin in 2010.
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No, caveat emptor applies here. The buyer should be responsible for how much information he or she needs. If things go wrong you deal with your solicitor, nobody else's.
 
koolpc said:
Biggest problem with house buying / selling are solicitors!

Bunch of muppets.
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Biggest problem with house buying/selling are buyers/sellers. Easy isn't it to blame the other side of the fence.

If people could fill in paperwork properly solicitors wouldn't have to waste time asking 3 times. If people could sign documents where they are told solicitors wouldn't have to waste time sending new copies out. If people could find copies of documents they got when they built an extension solicitors wouldn't have to waste time asking the council for copies. If people could carry out basic ID checks properly and read basic requirements for source of funds solicitors wouldn't have to waste time explaining 6 times what is required.

I could go on...

An average day for me involves answering 20 emails from clients who ask a question they could find the answer to on our online portal (that has had ££££££ invested to make it state of the art and bang up to date on every step of the transaction) (e.g have you had XX search back yet) or in documents that were sent out multiple times that they haven't bothered to read. Then another 20 emails from estate agents or brokers asking the same thing. Then half of those answer with a follow-up question. Then wade through 50 pages of bank statements because people just go "**** it i'll send everything" rather than send only what they've been asked for or even better send a screenshot from online banking that shows bugger all information. Then remind a few people of their portal passwords which haven't changed in 4 weeks. Then send a few contracts back to people who have signed on the wrong page despite being sent an example copy showing where to sign. Then go through a property information form question by question asking for ones to be filled in that haven't.

Might get some legal work done at some point..
 
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R.O.S.S.I said:
In my mind (and I could very well be wrong) it is the searches and mortgage offers that mostly hold things up - So things mainly like this:
  • local authority searches
  • environmental searches
  • water and drainage search
Click to expand...
this is actually the quickest bit. i got the search pack back within a week
 
R.O.S.S.I said:
But the rest just seems a bit archaic and intentionally inefficient. I dare say ALL of these requirements could be digitised and shortened to a matter of hours for acquisition rather than the weeks (and sometimes months) they are at the moment.
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They absolutely could be but who do you suggest pays for this? A lot of firms have taken it upon themselves to do this but they are the same ones that get slated online for having poor client contact and impersonal communication.

Good luck getting the "old boys" to do this when they are barely staying afloat as it is.
 
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Skillmister said:
Biggest problem with house buying/selling are buyers/sellers. Easy isn't it to blame the other side of the fence.

If people could fill in paperwork properly solicitors wouldn't have to waste time asking 3 times. If people could sign documents where they are told solicitors wouldn't have to waste time sending new copies out. If people could find copies of documents they got when they built an extension solicitors wouldn't have to waste time asking the council for copies. If people could carry out basic ID checks properly and read basic requirements for source of funds solicitors wouldn't have to waste time explaining 6 times what is required.

I could go on...

An average day for me involves answering 20 emails from clients who ask a question they could find the answer to on our online portal (that has had ££££££ invested to make it state of the art and bang up to date on every step of the transaction) (e.g have you had XX search back yet) or in documents that were sent out multiple times that they haven't bothered to read. Then another 20 emails from estate agents or brokers asking the same thing. Then half of those answer with a follow-up question. Then wade through 50 pages of bank statements because people just go "**** it i'll send everything" rather than send only what they've been asked for or even better send a screenshot from online banking that shows bugger all information. Then remind a few people of their portal passwords which haven't changed in 4 weeks. Then send a few contracts back to people who have signed on the wrong page despite being sent an example copy showing where to sign. Then go through a property information form question by question asking for ones to be filled in that haven't.

Might get some legal work done at some point..
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Yeh im by no means saying that the other party arent to blame at times, I just think the whole process could be streamlined and made more efficient.

/rantover anyway haha
 
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