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Iain Harrison

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my expertise in the industry

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There are lots of problems with the UK market - from selling the property in the first place (bad case of over-valuing to win instructions are SOP for many estate agents), poor or no sales progression from agents meaning buyers/sellers left in the hands of solicitors , which brings me nicely to my thrid point that conveyancing is at best, average in the UK, and the best solicitors are hindered by the majority who are average to poor. And that's before I agree with Richard that agents and sellers can do a lot of legwork early days to negate some of this.

From: Iain Harrison 21 February 2024 09:24 AM

Methinks Adam is unaware of the current cost of living crisis in the country...

From: Iain Harrison 04 January 2023 09:04 AM

Whilst they may be right in that they can sell it to anyone they want to, PB were also right in choosing to no longer want to represent clients who are homophobic, or showing any sort of prejudice - the fact that we have a lawyer commenting on this just proves what a joke English Law is...

From: Iain Harrison 28 January 2022 09:08 AM

Andrew - sounds like you need to take a step back and learn the value of a good work/home life balance, tapping away at a keyboard at 2am doesn't sounds like you have one...the customer isn't always right and if you're just going to slave away your life to meets unrealistic expectations then more fool you. No tech can ever replace a human being (until Terminator that is) and the SmartVal is just another gimmick, no different to dozens of other gimmicks being peddled out in the marketplace. Enjoy your keyboard tapping, I will be watching the return of the Premier League myself.

From: Iain Harrison 13 August 2021 09:03 AM

Fortunately as virtually nobody will be on Boomin we (as agents) won't be pressured into being 'available and ready' for a SmartVal when we're not at work, anybody who is requesting one is likely to be sat at home on the sofa watching TV in the evening, exactly where most of us should be and not having to worry about being at work when we're not at work...

From: Iain Harrison 11 August 2021 09:27 AM

Nope, if you can't complete the work don't take it on - I know many conveyancers who are overworked and underpaid by their greedy bosses who refuse to accept that there is a limit to the number of files a single conveyancer can deal with, absolutely ridiculous situation where firms take on too many files, deliver poor and slow service to their clients and then charge extra to 'make it happen' by end of June. System is broken, simple as that.

From: Iain Harrison 24 May 2021 10:57 AM

If they can't complete the work in a reasonable timescale then they shouldn't be taking the work on, to charge higher fees to meet a deadline just means they have too much work in the first instance so will 'prioritise' certain clients who have a bigger wallet, conveyancing system is broken, when will they wake up to this?

From: Iain Harrison 24 May 2021 09:19 AM

Most sellers want low fees but more importantly as the survey reveals they want as much money for their property, as stress free and quick as possible - generally people don't move house for fun, it's for genuine reasons and with a timescale attached (school applications, jobs, baby on the way etc) so they'll choose an agent they feel can deliver that but also will want to screw us on the fee, lol

From: Iain Harrison 11 May 2021 09:27 AM

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

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