Solicitors ‘delaying’ conveyances due to staff shortages
Friday 30 July 2010 by Catherine Baksi
Staff shortages at conveyancing firms are slowing down property transactions, according to a prominent estate agent and former anti-home information pack campaigner.
Nick Salmon, commercial director of independent estate agents Harrison Murray who founded anti-HIP group Splinta, told the Gazette that ‘understaffed’ firms are struggling to cope with the increased volume of work after laying off conveyancers at the height of the recession.
‘As the recession started to bite in mid-2008, quite a number of firms reduced their staffing numbers as the volume of property transactions fell. But from spring/early summer 2009, transaction volumes started to rise a bit,’ said Salmon.
‘Understandably, in light of the economic uncertainty, firms have been very cautious about rehiring staff and are finding they have too few staff to deal with the volume of work they now have,’ he said.
Salmon said it was hard to quantify how much delay had ‘crept into the process’ but said it had become necessary to ‘really push firms to make matters progress’.
Richard Barnett, chairman of the Law Society’s conveyancing and land law committee, said: ‘The delays that occur could be put down to many other factors. How quickly a transaction is completed is determined by many issues including the time taken to get a mortgage and the actions of the lay clients.’
Jonathan Lay, national operations director at estate agents Spicerhaart, said: ‘We haven't suffered knowingly from staff shortages in the legal profession. It appears most of our legal partners are actively recruiting.’
Comments
one word.
One word. Nonsense.
Solicitors ‘delaying’ conveyances due to staff shortages!!
I am offended by Mr Salmon's attitude and in particular the comment " it had become necessary to ‘really push firms to make matters progress". Estate agents continue to amaze me at the lengths they will go to to try to push matters through when there are legal problems or matters outstanding for whatever reason. I have recently had a very obvious instance of where the estate agents had clearly lied to clients and seemed to forget that solicitors talk to each and we know the actual position, we talk to our clients who tell us what the estate agents tell them and we solicitors discuss what our clients are telling us the estate agents are telling them. There are very few estate agents that I can have a conversation with that understand what a problem is when you explain it to them and have realistic expectations of what is achievable and in what timescale. As for "staff shortages" causing delays this is not something I have experienced in other firms or my own.
blame the solicitor just
blame the solicitor just because understanding transfer of legal title is so so simple that Emmet on Title was a complete waste of time then?
Increased delays... abolition
Increased delays... abolition of HIPs... coincidence?
HIPs speeded up the title investigation process considerably, the anti HIP lobby have no one to blame but themselves if transactions are taking longer to complete, and solicitors shouldn't let them pass the buck.
Something smells fishy
I wouldn't put my trust in Mr Salmon if I were you !
Economic realities
I recently saw an advert for a conveyancing solicitor in London that wanted an experienced person, who could supervise others, own following an advantage and whom could also do a small case load of wills and probabe - salary "up to" £25k. Therefore the lawyer would be earning less than the average senior sales negotiator whose firm may be charging the conveyancer a referral fee.
It would take a significant rise in volume of work to justify buying new staff. Referral fees, salaries of support staff (secretaries etc) and the downward pressure on legal fees (this will get worse after Tesco law /ABS Oct 2011) make the position of Partners difficult to say the least.
Quality staff are needed to deliver legal services. Baring in mind a lot of legal secretaries earned 25k fifteen years ago why would anyone want to become a conveyancer?
Struggling to find a legal secretary job....
I have three years' legal secretarial experience and recently relocated to live with my partner. I have not been able to find a job for two months and am really unhappy about it. Can anyone help? I'm looking for a legal secretary position in the Seaham/Sunderland/Newcastle area.
Please reply here if you can help...I look on all job websites daily and job newspapers weekly. It is really starting to get me down.
vacancy
a secretarial vacancy has arisen at a firm in Newcastle. Call HR on 0191 2339711. Good luck.
Solicitors delaying conveyances
When some solicitors are paying £100/200 a referral but still charging the usual conveyancing fee for their area it is hardly surprising that they cannot afford the level of staff necessary to support the amount of work they are receiving. Meanwhile other local solicitors who are not prepared to pay bribes are finding that their previous clients are being referred to the bribe paying solicitors even when they wish to use their usual solicitor. Work that used to be done by local solicitors, who knew each other, is now being referred to "conveyancing factories" sometimes hundreds of miles from where the client lives, who then have so much work that they cannot cope.
Mr Salmon may like to consider how solicitors are to employ more staff when the fee of say £600 is about the same as it was years ago but many agents now expect to be paid out of it a bribe of at least £100. Work it out! Many of the big conveyancing factories have gone bust because the figures do not add up. There is only one cake and if agents are going to have a hefty slice of it in addition to their own fees it leaves less to provide the wherewithal to service the work.
If agents are looking to have the work done properly they may find those local firms that are not prepared to pay bribes have the capacity to assist them because they can afford the staff.
Conveyancing long ago ceased to be very profitable and if agents think that solicitors can both pay them a bribe and employ loads of staff then they are more naive than I believe them to be.
Meanwhile a client has just rung to check progress, I had to report that I am still waiting for a contract on a sale that was agreed 3 weeks ago. Needless to say the solicitors are a bribe paying firm and I've yet to receive even a letter from them. No doubt as I am not in the agents pocket the delays will be blamed on me!
Meanwhile if agents are truly concerned about solicitors being under-staffed they could improve this by not taking bribes.
As a partner in a local firm
As a partner in a local firm that doesn't pay bribes I'm delighted to hear this news. We have recently found we are receiving referrals from the Estate Agents who usually take bribes from a firm of Licensed Conveyancers to refer both the sellers and buyers. It only started because a couple of the Estate Agents staff were moving and obviously wanted a decent service so they avoided the bribe payers. They were amazed by what a good service you can get if you pay a reasonable fee. Long may it last.
Staff shortages
I am a Licensed Conveyancer, with many years' experience, who has been looking for a full time job now for upwards of two years. I have been working part time for a small firm of solicitors but nobody has really approached me about full time work yet I am told that I have a good CV. I am experienced in commercial and residential conveyancing, probate and willwriting, yet there does not seem to be that much demand for experienced people out there at the moment. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Conveyancing delays
I agree with Richard Barnett. There are a number of other factors that can contribute to delay in a conveyancing transaction. Agents particulars are still too often sent by post sometimes weeks after a deal has been struck, mortgage offers can sometimes take an inordinate length of time to arrive, searches in some areas can take time to process, clients can change their minds, problems in the title can be uncovered which require further investigation and with so many parties potentially involved the list can appear to be endless. Yes there have been widescale redundancies but they have largely been in the remortgage arena which have had to rely on volume to make their business models work.
In my view there are too many firms that offer conveyancing that don't always have the necessary skill to bring everything together quickly and to properly see things through to completion.
The key is to use a firm that employs specialist conveyancers or property solicitors. It should go without saying that any responsible business would not take on business it cannot fulfill.
Delay in conveyancing
The only delay we experience is from solicitors who offer cut-price conveyancing, expect us to respond when they are ready (having not communicated with us until they are ready) and from banks.
Estate Agents appear not to understand or care about the conveyancing process and appear to be interested only in their commission so get on the phone and are pushy to hurry along their pay day.
SRA should abandon its light touch regulatory proposal and insist that firms charge an acceptable market rate that does not adversely affect service or facilitate negligence. Estate Agents who rely on referral fees should have to tell their clients upon engagement the total fee they get from the conveyancer they are promoting and that the client has a free choice. Failure to do so should result in fines and closure.
slow conveyancing.
It would be interesting if Mr Salmon were to give his attention to finding out how many delays are caused by conveyancing factories where no one person deals with a file but everybody has a finger in the pie! I recently dealt with a conveyancing factory paying for referrals where the person dealing with the purchase had previouly been working in Iceland (the store not the country) and who rang asking me what an epitome was and what he should do with it.I don't know of any local SOLICITORS who are experiencing delays due to lack of staff. I do know of several estate agents arranging completion dates with clients when there are outstanding problems , simply so that they can have their commission by the end of the month!Time to stop the back handers and think what is best for the clients? Local firms with local knowledge who work together!But will the estate agents do that? Over to you Mr Salmon...........
I am a solicitor with many
I am a solicitor with many years experience in the property development, finance and sales industries. I am supposedly a higly qualified and experienced member of a profession that should command at least a fair salary in line with what other professionals are charging or at least other solicitors. I wonder just how extensive Mr Salmon's research was, because there is no shortage of highly qualified and experienced property professionals such as myself who cannot secure a decent job and depends on temporary work when we can find it. In fact, I am so fed up with the property professiona I am giving serious consideration pursuing some other business venture or retraining in another profession or trade because sadly my experience in property law must have drained my gray matter if I see the disdain with which law firms treat me when I suggest that I can retrain and that I have acquired numerous skills over the years tat are not property specific. I know for a fact that I am not alone when it comes to this way of thinking. When the property market picks up law firms and other industry players may realise exactly how short the profession is of property law professionals that simply sought pastures new after suffering the treatment they got at the hand of colleagues and the like. Yes, you can say I am bitter but would you not feel the same way after studying and working all those years to end up working for a salary that a bin man at a council earns. Most of all I blame the Law Society for the position that my arm of the profession is now in. Yes, law firms did try everything to outbid each other in touting for work but the people who should have protected the honour of the profession and our stature that would have ensured a decent income for us all were AWOL from their guard posts. Dare I suggest that if the Law Society forced all practitioners to charge a decent fee for their work without exception, forbade fee sharing and prosecuted practitioners not complying we would have been in a different position. Enough of my tirade....Sow your peanuts... employ your monkeys...this ape has had enough and I am evolving!
Iinteresting comment. The
Iinteresting comment.
The legal profession is being slowly dismantled by outsourcing, deskilling, demand destruction, over supply of labour and alternative to lawyers (i.e. bank now offering free conveyancing)
Seriously there is no future in the profession, don't waste your time, money and energy. There are plenty of other professions that have better future prospects.
Think it through.
New sole practitioners and PI
Not all that long ago a solicitor who was unhappy with his position or had lost his job might realistically consider setting up his own firm, even if he started operating from his own dining table. This helped to provide a reasonable level of local competition. A key to survival for most new sole practitioners would be keeping overheads low. That was before professional indemnity insurance left the profession's direct control and was put out to the market. Now is seems unlikely that many conveyancers or probate solicitors hoping to set up as new sole practices can produce a sensible financial model, or indeed any financial model beyond the first year's insurance renewal date, assuming they can get a PI quote at all. I wonder what are the implications of this for the future of the profession, and whether any statistics are being collected recording the year-by-year rate of new sole practitioner start-ups specifically offering conveyancing and wills/probate services.
new sole practitioner
I've looked at this in some detail recently vis a vis practicing probate as a sole practitioner.
as a solicitor, the combination of indemnity insurance, accounting rules and SRA regs means it cannot easily be done, if at all.
However, if you surrender your qualification and act as an unqualified person, then it actually makes economic sense.
imagine it, acting how you think best. doing the best you can for your clients and doing it on your terms. indemnity insurance less than a fifth of that for a regulated firm....
If Mr Salmon carried the risk
If Mr Salmon carried the risk and responsibility we do for avoiding mortgage fraud and money laundering he would stop pushing and start running.
I cannot understand why the
I cannot understand why the Gazette allows column inches to someone who so clearly has little regard for or understanding of the legal profession, unless it is designed to inspire otherwise mute property solicitors to stand up and be counted (or quietly close the door behind them). The only interesting contributions to this debate were by the secretary looking for a job in Newcastle and the practitioner who appeared to ahve found her one!
I cannot understand why the
I cannot understand why the Gazette allows column inches to someone who so clearly has little regard for or understanding of the legal profession, unless it is designed to inspire otherwise mute property solicitors to stand up and be counted (or quietly close the door behind them). The only interesting contributions to this debate were by the secretary looking for a job in Newcastle and the practitioner who appeared to ahve found her one!
It is unfortunate that Neil A
It is unfortunate that Neil A G finds the comments mainly uninteresting.
Generally they seem to be fairly reflective of the current situation of the profession.
Sadly this does not appear to be realised by the Law Society which, not least via the President, continues to mouth platitudes about helping the profession whilst doing nothing (at considerable expense).
In the current circumstances one might expect that the office holders would forego some of their salaries-some hope!