To think buying and selling homes could be made much much simpler..

It's been a week and I still haven't had the call back I was promised nor have I been told that my vendor has made an offer on something. I think some solicitors forget that this is our lives and future, but just their job.

You could make solicitors/ conveyancers more responsible.
Make reports easier to get or even pre on the market.

I wish we had WYSIWYG house buying - what you see is what you get. No council searches or other BS associated with house buying.

It used to be. It used to be that once you had accepted an offer both sides felt bound by it, even if technically it wasn't binding until missives had been concluded. Bridging loans were really common if your sale hadn't completed by the entry date for your new purchase. Then bridging got more expensive, solicitors started saying don't worry, we'll keep asking things so that we don't conclude missives before your sale is done, and lo and behold you see chains starting to emerge. The Home Report system is better though. It can still be abused if pressure is put on surveyors to downgrade some of the scores but it's a lot better than the previous system.

So much that resonates. On the radio they said the average length of completion was 6 weeks 20-30 years ago. Now closer to 6 months despite significant digitisation. We're currently going through the mangle - the solicitors lie constantly, blaming the other side (as with pp, ourselves and buyer are in near daily contact). Random pointless bits of paperwork that we have to jump around to get. So much time wasting despite deadlines agreed in advance with generous time to complete. I can only conclude the solicitors collude to deliberately extend timeframes to justify their fee. As another pp says you can do the conveyancing yourself in straightforward sales (we've done it). It takes days rather than ducking 6 months!

We were very lucky, but our house size is slightly unique for the area - a 4 bed in an estate of 3 beds with a large garden. We were prepared to move out if we had to, but didn't want to commit to a rental. Luckily the house we ended up with, was a relatively easy buy as they had no onward chain, and we put an offer in shortly before christmas, so that part has been relatively quick, and we lucked out with the house we ended up with.

So many solicitors are absolutely hopeless.

I bought a small office (ground floor) about a decade ago from my, then, landlord who lived in the flat above. That was a fiasco. We agreed everything between us, I'd been renting the place for a decade beforehand, so I knew it inside out, but the solicitors insisted on all kinds of warranties, guarantees, surveys (asbestos, energy efficiency etc), that I, as buyer, didn't want, and I was paying cash so there was no mortgage lender who wanted them either. I talked to the guy daily, so when we both started getting solicitors letters blaming eachother for the delays, we gave the solicitors a right rollocking as they were just lying. Eventually, got the sale done.

Just recently, happened again trying to sell it back to the new lady who bought the upstairs and we agreed she could buy the ground floor office from me separately. I used the same solicitors as for purchase. They had no records at all of the purchase they acted for, so we had to go through it all again. Lady upstairs likewise told she needed asbestos survey, energy efficiency etc - I'd already given them to her and copied both solicitors in with the email attaching them. Took us both, again, to rollock the solicitors because just as before they were blaming us for the delays, but clearly again didn't realise we were talking daily and knew neither of us was delaying.

I've never understood the survey ridiculousness.

Seller accepts offer. Buyer has survey which throws up xyz. Buyer pulls out. Next buyer comes along. Same debacle.

Just make having a full, detailed survey something every seller has to have in place before listing and EA valuing - and it's then provided to everyone viewing.

The same as you'd have to pay for an up to date Gas Safety Certificate if you're renting your house. If you're selling, you need to first pay for a survey.

The process could be a lot simpler and faster

The Land Registry has already looked at a blockchain based solution

https://hmlandregistry.blog.gov.uk/2019/05/24/could-blockchain-be-the-future-of-the-property-market/

So why has it not happened ?

Occam’s razor would point to the legal industry stopping progress.

The bottom line is that without conveyancing there would not enough jobs for the incompetent and/or lazy members of the profession.

Not if there's a lender involved.

No they don't. Most conveyancing is on a fixed fee and your typical conveyancer is not a particularly high earner.

YANBU!

It’s slow because targets are high and fees are low which means conveyancers are dealing with too many clients at one time to be efficient.

Pay more at a decent firm and you will usually get a better service.

Not if a lender is involved, sadly.

They do it on purpose to line solicitors pockets. you can actually do your own conveyancing

This is good to hear.

Let's hope they make some progress.

Oh how frustrating. I thought it was generally better in Scotland

Just moved and never again. Unbelievably awful process and that’s without any major issues like someone pulling out.

All buyers and sellers need to be clearly educated on what is required of them, solicitors need to communicate clearly and IMO if surveys were done prior to going to market that would save a hell of a lot of hassle when the buyer discovers x,y and z ( especially first time buyers).

Our estate agent worked her butt of to get us completed and was unbelievably frustrated at the lack of competence from the professionals and clients buying from us. There were only 3 in the chain!

They do - they have a collaboration group with the conveyancing/property industries to work on exactly that. There's also a trade body called the Open Property Data Associaton whose aim is to digitise as much of the property data as possible to speed up that part of the process.

The problem is that you need everyone on board: consumers, lenders, estate agents, conveyancers, etc. And some parts of that process (particularly the legal bits) are slow-moving beasts.

We will see it happen though, eventually.

DeltaAlphaDelta79

You are extremely lucky that your buyers were prepared to wait for you. Sellers arsing about are half the problem. If you're selling your house, just get it sold and fuck off into a rental!

We accepted an offer on ours last june, we exchanged Wednesday just gone and move next week.

The first house we were going to buy, got all the way to exchange then the sellers pulled out just before. Turns out they repeatedly advertise their house for sale, then pull out somewhere along the line, and then relist a few months later. £2,000 in solicitors and survey fees wasted. I didnt know about homebuyers insurance then.

Luckily we found another property in December which had no onward chain. We nearly lost that because our buyers solicitor, since June, hadn't taken our buyers deposit.

8 months for a first time buyer (our buyer), us and the property we bought with no chain which admittedly would have been sooner had our first sellers not pulled out. I'm never moving again!!

It doesn't have to be this way

In Scotland, pretty much all properties ate now on the Land Register, so no need for solicitor to look at all the old title deeds

And less of an issue with buyers / sellers pulling out

We are mid move at the moment and our solicitors have asked us to clarify points on the deeds.

Dude, I am literally paying you to understand this stuff. I can’t translate that into English.