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A while ago I refused to enter a "no sale, no fee" deal with a client and she went to an internet conveyancing provider instead. Afterwards she said it was wonderful as the firm had had an online updater that she could use at any time telling her supposedly exactly what was happening. What she failed to grasp was that this is all fine with one sale to one buyer and no-one else in the chain. However when there are a number of links in the chain, it's far more difficult to know what's going on. So many times I've had clients excitedly telling me that everyone's ready to exchange when in fact it turns out that somewhere in the chain someone isn't ready and everyone has to wait several more weeks. I've drafted up a short passage now in my introductory literature telling people that it is not contractually the job of either Solicitors or estate agents to ring up and down a chain all the time to try to co-ordinate things and that clients if they wish can take on that mantle themselves or pay someone to do so. However it would take some doing in practice. Online updaters for a whole chain are unlikely to be sufficiently detailed to really be of any use and as many others have said, the clients will often just call for an update anyway, or else they'll ask questions by email that can't really be simply answered in writing so I'll have to ask them to call me anyway.

When will those that guide and control us realise that this British habit of buying and selling and moving the same day in long chains does mean a degree of inherent delay and uncertainty right up until usually a week or so before completion and that dates fixed in advance often can't be adhered to.

I've been doing this job for, God help me, 44 years now and essentially it hasn’t altered much. Abolish chains and you might get somewhere. Otherwise stop tampering and leave alone something that isn't broke yet. Oh, and save us all some money too by not investing in speculative schemes.