Aibu to send this message to house buyer

[Harrassedofhertfordshire]

1st time poster so please bear with me .

Selling house and it seems to be dragging on. We need to sell to secure the house we’re moving to (we’re relocating so decided on a new build). It’s a cash buyer, no estate agent - friend of a friend wanted to buy ours as an investment.

I sent this message to my buyer to try and speed things up. Is it a bit much? My DH said it’s about as tactful as an elephant taking a shit on the lawn 😱.

Hi X and Y, I hope all is well. We are keen to exchange asap due to purchasing the new build. I spoke to Z at your solicitors on Tuesday afternoon. He said he only just got the contract pack from (name of solicitors) even though it was dated 23 October. I don’t know it went around the building or was with A before that? He hadn’t seen the survey report at that point. I hope they have it now so things can progress. I have let my solicitor know they only just got the pack. Thanks.
(Edited by MNHQ)

I see no issue with that except it’s not to thr point enough. I’d have ended it with “anythjng you can do to speed this up please?”

There is nothing wrong with your message. Your husband is being ridiculous. This is a business deal and needs to be handled as such. You need answers from them and you need them now.

Yup elephant like... But why not! They need to get a wriggle on!

Thank you bluntness. Agreed. I have been accused of being too direct sometimes (not related to post). I’m trying not to be too pushy and am aesre of language barriers and cultural differences (buyer is Chinese)

#aware that should say

Yes avocado they do! I’m never quite sure about taking DH’s word for it! He has a good poker face and also sometimes gets the wrong end of the stick pribably partly as I don’t always explain myself v well and he is dyslexic 🙂

Excuse my typos

I’d feel better if they replied tbh. I sent the message at 4.30 and now it’s almost 6 ...

Lol Aqumarine, it wouldn’t be the first time 😜

I know from personal experience that some solicitors simply won't be hurried up, no matter how much the buyer pesters them.

I made the mistake of taking using the people the estate agent recommended, Simply Conveyancing. They were overpriced but I wrongly believed the estate agent's recommendation meant that they were a decent company. They were utterly hopeless and would not do a single thing until I'd asked them at least twice - irrelevant things that I had no interest in, like demanding the seller told them how much a parking permit cost. (I don't drive, and am perfectly capable of going on the council's website to find out!)

A straightforward move - me a first time buyer, buying a vacant property with no chain, whose mortgage was approved within a week of my initial offer on the house - took over four months.

Sometimes the buyer might take the piss, but sometimes there is nothing they can do. A solicitor who isn't interested in hurrying up won't be pushed.

I think your message was fine. Things may move along better if the two solicitors connect and agree on a time line for getting things done. Once the lawyers have at it the buyer may not be the block on the critical path.

I'd ask your solicitor to try to move things along.

Does your op have your real name at the end? MNHQ can remove identifying info if you ask.
I don't know what difference your message would make, better to ask your solicitor to follow up?

I know you have sent it now, but as you have said they are Chinese...

I have Chinese family and I sometimes have to think quite carefully how to phrase things and avoid any casual wording. In fact I would have kept it much shorter and more staccato, especially in writing. I know it sounds perfectly normal to your ear, but it is potentially quite a difficult message, depending on their English ability.

(Written Chinese doesn't have clear cut spaces between words, its all about context and suchlike. So when they read English as a second language, it's advisable to make sure everything is simple and totally clear-cut in quite formal English)

Good luck and I hope you hear soon.

Not unreasonable at all. Sometimes direct contact is a necessity!!

Buying my 1st and my 3rd property required direct contact between sellers to figure our what the hell the conveyancing solicitors were doing!!

First property they were arguing over who should pay for a £100 insurance policy for leasehold building, and the delay nearly caused the chain to collapse and sale to fall through which would have cost both of us a lot more than £100, can't even remember who paid it in the end, we just decided one of us needed to.

2nd time my solicitor was demanding info from vendors solicitor, over wayleaves, vendors solicitor saying they didn't think there were any, and the letters were just going backwards and forwards with no progress being made. I sat down one afternoon, research what a Wayleave was, and then phoned BT and the electricity board, who were both super helpful and got the answer from both of them within an hour or two of the original phone call...not that hard...never heard solicitor mention wayleaves again after I passed that info on to her!!!

Also direct contact meant we were able to rent our new house (as a holiday let) for a week between exchange and completion, as I had tenants moving in to my previous house. Neither solicitor were none the wiser on that one.

Making my blood boil just thinking about it!!!

Buyers up and down the country open the thread worried it’s about them... or that’s just me

I think the message was more than polite. I’ve been much more blunt on the phone this week with my seller’s conveyancers who are holding the whole thing up.

Thanks everyone. They’ve replied and said they’d give their solicitor a call. I’ve already been in touch with mine. I think both solicitors are in no rush unfortunately. I used a firm I’d used before but there has been a change of staff.

Conveyancing solicitors (like me) hate it when clients talk to each other directly. Chinese whispers usually ends up in tears.

And we don't go slow on purpose.

Chicken - we often have to talk directly to get anything done!

I work in accountancy so I deal with client expectations as well. What I don’t do is sit on their information for weeks at a time, not communicate with them, blame the other side. I also don’t take on so much work that I am not able to provide a high level of customer service. I have heard these complaints over and over from intelligent people who know the process.

This time we have a really fantastic solicitor, I will heartily recommend him and his team to all my friends. Last time we bought our solicitor was slow, refused to to talk to us, held the process up for three weeks claiming she hadn’t received something she had. Same problem this time with the seller’s solicitors.

If I hadn’t spoken to the seller directly I wouldn’t have realised they were also pulling their hair out in frustration at how shit their conveyancer is. We’ve been able to present a united front and keep the pressure focused and are hopeful exchanging next week, 3 weeks after we could have.

I'm sorry to hear of your experiences. Not your fault, but it's a crap system these days. Members of the public don't want to pay conveyancing fees. So you end up in the hands of semi-qualified, overworked staff in a "conveyancing factory". Time was when you would head along to your local solicitor on your high street, someone who'd helped your family for 40 years...you paid his fee and you got a personal service. Not so much now. Folks want it all done for £399 &VAT and then complain when they get practically no level of service and experience delays and mistakes. You get what you pay for.

I'm not implying you are using a "conveyancing factory" btw, OP. But a lot of people are using these shitey call-centre-type, online-based establishments which are usually run by crooks and then seem surprised when it all falls apart.

Also, you should only speak to your own solicitor, not the solicitor "on the other side". I HATE it when the purchaser phones me directly when I'm acting for the seller. Or vice-versa. I can only direct them back to their own solicitor otherwise I open a can of conflict of interest/breach of client confidentiality rules.

Conveyancing - a thankless task, most of the time!

Gawd - unintended pun on the Chinese whispers by the way, was nothing to do with the fact the other side are in fact Chinese!

Chicken I have paid a high street solicitor every time. This time £3,000. I never got to even speak on the phone to the last conveyancer I paid £’000s to. Perhaps you shouldn’t think your potential clients are all clueless or tight.

The sellers solicitor, has not spoken to anyone for three weeks. Her client, my solicitor, the estate agents so out of sheer desperation I gave it a go. I am aware how the process works and it’s not the done thing. As said I am not clueless Just desperate to stop my chain collapsing because of a solicitor who things she’s too important to deal with the little people.

But the way you have come across has confirmed the attitude conveyancers have in my mind. We should all just trust they are working hard and stop trying to interfere with our silly little brains or expect good customer service for our £000’s. All the while waiting months to move with the thousands we’ve paid in fees and surveys on the line. I would be fired if I had that attitude towards my clients.

Haha! Our solicitors commented on how organised DH was when she showed up with a bundle of sorted and bulldog clipped papers.

They have since proved what a low bar they set for organised.

They were hassling us for a completion date, yesterday. This is within days of still faffing on with not much of an end in sight. We had to make it clear that we're the only ones in the very short chain boh buying and selling so no, we can't do next Friday, but they can jolly well wait until we can confirm availability of removals for certain dates (and work around a local event that would make moving very difficult for a whole long weekend)

So, I sat in a cold marketplace making phone calls, yesterday afternoon, to speed that along and DH phoned up with the best date from the various options only to find out that our own conveyancer had gone home. He had a text conversation with our buyer, last night, just to confirm that and it turns out that they're not the ones anxious for an earlier date. Tried to contact solicitor today and still out of office! When they were having "urgent" negotiations, yesterday, they could have fucking mentioned that small detail!

So yeah, SHL's don't go into conveyancing, it seems.

But the way you have come across has confirmed the attitude conveyancers have in my mind. We should all just trust they are working hard and stop trying to interfere with our silly little brains or expect good customer service for our £000’s. All the while waiting months to move with the thousands we’ve paid in fees and surveys on the line. I would be fired if I had that attitude towards my clients.
Wowzers! I was really just letting you into some of the frustrations conveyancing solicitors have but am very sorry you got that impression from me. Fine, I will be your punching bag if it makes you feel better.

Did you honestly pay £3k in legal fees? Or does that cover outlays and tax as well? If £3k just for fees then you have been seriously robbed. I charge about £500-£1200 & VAT & outlays.

Our solicitors commented on how organised DH was when she showed up with a bundle of sorted and bulldog clipped papers.
Actually, that's code for "fuck, this client is going to be hard work"

SHL's don't go into conveyancing, it seems.
Thanks for the insult! I used to be an SHL who worked in civil and criminal court practice. But believe it or not, I wanted a work life balance so gave up that lifestyle once I wasn't so young anymore. I work very hard for my conveyancing clients and am satisfied at doing a good job for them (for very little thanks and not great money). But do continue hating lawyers, we're used to it.