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Anonymous at 18.12. It may well be that some conveyancers didn't give the clearest advice possible, however, in my experience (40 years plus now), most clients either don't read, or aren't interested in the information and advice we provide. You can take a horse to water....

I was flicking through radio stations yesterday and came across a phone in for people who have been caught out by leasehold houses. A number of points jumped out at me:

1. Nobody understood the difference between freehold and leasehold.

2. A number of the callers all complained that the sales assistant in the show home didn't tell them anything about the leasehold arrangement – neither did anyone mention expecting their conveyancer to check the title and advise them. It seemed to me that people (well the callers I listened to) just didn't understand the process of buying a property, any property - they were talking about it like it was buying a sofa or something and simply relying on what the sales assistant told them.

3. At one stage (and I thought I was going to have to pull over at this point!) the radio commentator said, "I wonder if there is anything about this in the junk that the solicitor sends you - or I wonder if they'd have a vested interest in making sure that it was leasehold anyway".

This issue once again underlines that a large proportion of the public don't value what conveyancers do, or maybe worse don't even care. I thought it was interesting that people linked leasehold problems more to the sales assistant in the show home, than to the legal advice they would receive from their conveyancer. A lot of people really do just look for the cheapest conveyancer and don't think about what they are buying or why they are buying it. There has to be an opportunity here for conveyancers to educate the public.

This is also a great opportunity to put right a number of other leasehold issues, including some of the ones mentioned by Beth Rudolf. Unfair delays and ridiculously high charges imposed by managing agents etc.

If you don't have, and would like a copy of the consultation, email me: rh@boldgroup.co.uk