x

Iain Harrison

343 Profile Views

About Me

my expertise in the industry

Iain's Recent Activity

I agree, we should ban referral fees, and also modernise the conveyancing industry because no sale should take more than 10 weeks to reach a point when it should be in a position to exchange. Whether it be a conveyancing 'factory' or a traditional solicitor the delays are intolerable and shouldn't be allowed, the amount of waiting and blaming the other side that happens is ridiculous, wasting client's time because the industry is still operating in the dark ages...

From: Iain Harrison 03 March 2021 11:34 AM

Not the worst ideas in the world, but until the conveyancing companies accept that they are a part of the problem then nothing will change...they take on too many files for the number of people they employ, they pay them poorly for that workload, they are poorly trained and unable to cope, but then the firms blame everyone else for why it takes so long. Many of these conveyancing firms seem to operate a 'stack it high, sell it cheap' mentality, grab as many files as possible and stuff the client who is paying them, the attitude is that it will take as long as it takes...that's from the top, not the individuals who work at these firms...

From: Iain Harrison 03 March 2021 10:52 AM

The file exchanged the next day...

From: Iain Harrison 17 November 2020 11:30 AM

Alan Murray - pretty poor of your senior partner to give in just so they keep their referrals from the estate agent, must have been desperate for business...shoddy practice and clearly not working in their client's best interests, pity that they weren't reported to The Law Society...

From: Iain Harrison 17 November 2020 10:41 AM

Stephen - never met an estate agent who would put pressure on a solicitor to ignore a defective title, sadly I have dealt with many of the sweatshop factory conveyancers who offer cheap as chips conveyancing, but also some of the old fashioned solicitors really should have retired long ago and are so out of touch with modern ways of working that they cause as many problems as the online conveyancers...and these are the firms that Edward Heaton recommends a client uses, great if you want a cup of tea and biscuit with your service and have an extra three months to wait because the gold course just can't wait...

From: Iain Harrison 17 November 2020 10:11 AM

Hello, welcome to the 20th Century, oh no, wait, we did that one...Edward Heaton is totally living in the past and fails to address the real problem which is not necessarily the type of firms involved, solicitors or conveyancers, it's the fact that the system is broken and too many people just go along with it and react, blame the system, let's not bother to change it, let's still close between 1-2pm, let's knock off at 5pm, let's go on holiday for two weeks and except our clients to have to wait because nobody else will deal with the file. let's take on too many cases so we can't handle them properly, let's not do anything proactive as it doesn't matter because we've not hit the average time yet so have plenty more weeks to waste playing golf, having lunch and writing letters...

From: Iain Harrison 17 November 2020 09:43 AM

Daniel - the time searches take ebbs and flows, but the time taken to reach an exchange gets longer and longer, and is rarely due to the time taken for searches to arrive back with the conveyancers. Archaic systems and working practices, too much workload, too little knowledge and experience, lots of waiting on the other side (who happen to be doing the same thing) and a massive reluctance to seemingly pick up the phone...mind you, if conveyancers could do their job well then I probably would be out of mine, one of my main roles being sales progression...so I know where the problem lies, and it's the conveyancers and however much we have some brilliant people that we work with they are hindered by the simple fact that there will be another one in the chain who is useless, not all are young and some should have retired years ago.

From: Iain Harrison 20 October 2020 13:14 PM

The issue with conveyancing is the people, not the system...too many solicitors and conveyancers take on too much work which they then cannot process in a timely fashion. It's a myth that the searches are the cause for delays, or surveyors, or mortgage lenders - yes there are issues which slow the transactions down at the moment but conveyancing can, and should be done in a matter of weeks, not months, and if a solicitor was ready with all enquiries dealt with, searches back and contracts etc signed and then waiting for a mortgage offer to arrive they would be giving their client a proper service, but they're not...the system is simple, the people are quite often stuck in the 20th Century though.

From: Iain Harrison 19 October 2020 17:48 PM

Good riddance to bad trash...

From: Iain Harrison 15 June 2020 10:41 AM

It's not the price that is the problem, it's the poor quality of conveyancers and solicitors, and the outdated legal system which hinders clients, firms need to be proactive and cut the average transaction time down to weeks not months, then they can charge what they want as will be delivering a better service. Firms which sit on too many files and offer shoddy service to all their clients shouldn't be in business, hopefully lockdown will shake some of these firms up but I doubt it.

From: Iain Harrison 27 May 2020 08:40 AM

Agree with Andrew Richardson that the cause of the problem is the archaic legal system and solicitors/conveyancers who aren't up to the job of handling the number of transactions that they take on, plus they still rely on information coming into them before they'll do anything...we need pro-active conveyancers who get on with the transaction as soon as they have client instructions, searches can be submitted immediately which invariably saves weeks (we use conveyancers who have searches back before they've even had the draft contract paperwork in) but until all conveyancers/solicitors work like this we'll still be at the mercy of the slowest of them

From: Iain Harrison 28 February 2020 12:01 PM

Breaking News