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

[Hungrycaterpillarsmummy]

If there was a sort of "legal database" where only solicitors can access and it would show all previous documents relating to a property so there is no faff of going back and forth between solicitors.
I'm having to provide building warrants and applications, affadavits for road access etc which was obviously already done when we bought the property. Now we are going through it all again using a different solicitor for the sale.

Also the jargon ..surely the jargon could be modernised?! I just had an email saying "I see that you have emailed further requesting a mandate, I will get my colleague to prepare same and forward onto you."

Prepare the same! Honestly..

Maybe I am being unreasonable but it's such a fucking fafffffff.

I genuinely don’t know how solicitors can be so slow and incompetent and it can be so difficult. The whole process is ridiculous

Yanbu

Buying and selling houses is fraught with uncertainty and stress. What seems unfair particularly, is that you can spend quite a sum of money on surveys, searches and fees, only for the whole thing to fall apart before exchange.

I know it’s different in Scotland and I don’t know whether it’s an improvement, but what we have at the moment is time consuming, expensive and difficult.

I bought my first property in 1986. There was no internet, so everything was done via phone calls, snail mail, faxes, etc.

The process is now SLOWER than it was then. HOW?

Think that the major issue with house buying is that people can pull out up to exchange with no penalty, so you can wind up spending thousands for nothing. There ought to be some sort of early contract between buyer and seller which can only be cancelled under specific circumstances, such as bad survey causing mortgage refusal, or death of one of the parties. It would sift out the time wasters and clowns. This would have the added benefit of freeing up solicitors time as they would only be working on functioning sales.

Yeh I don't understand how either.
But what I'm finding is I am having to jig a long my solicitor. They asked me for affadavit proof and when I went to old solicitors they told me it has to be mandated by the new solicitor. I forwarded the email to the new solicitor and she's now saying they will prepare the mandate.

Like wtf! Why not do this FIRST. I don't know the process, you're meant to!

Omg is infuriating!

Also they ask for in depth documents after we've provided sufficient evidence from when we bought (which was good enough for the purchase to go through, so why not the sale now?) argh

I'm sure on Mumsnet we could think of multiple ideas to make it a much simpler process..but it would never be implicated and I don't know why not!

It was good enough when you purchased because the Lender's requirements weren't as strict then.
Now you are selling your buyer's Lender's requirements are much more detailed.
You do understand it's the Lender buying the house and the solicitor acts for them as well, don't you?

In fairness it sounds like your solicitor hasn't explained the process particularly well, given what you've written.

Also. Are you in E&W ? The terminology of 'mandated' sounds a little odd?

The government do want to digitise and speed up the whole process. I'm sure I read that last week.

Until then, next time I sell a house I'm going to make an online seller's pack, with all the info anyone could possibly want to see. All viewers welcome to the link.

Yes I understand that.
It should be the same standard both ways.

What's E+W?

Because the Lender has to be absolutely certain they can get their money back if you default on the mortgage and they reposses and sell the property.
No solicitor is going to risk being sued for not spotting that there's something wrong with the property that impacts it's value.

Well luckily the guy we bought off did create a pack so I do have a lot of stuff thank god. But there's still more to provide..

Solicitors love to make work for themselves!

We always go with fixed fee, no completion no fee. Seems to reduce the faffing.

England and Wales.

It's not the same when you buy and sell because the same property because there's time in between. Lender's requirements increase all the time.

The way to avoid this is to buy with cash and only sell to a cash buyer.

There's no conveyancing that isn't fixed fee? And most of it doesn't make much money!
It's the Lender making the requests, through the buyers solicitor not the buyer's Solicitor on their own behalf!

Ugh, one of my pet hates. When I bought my current house, I'd sold my previous house and was living in rented accommodation. No chain. I had the deposit in the bank and the small mortgage agreed by my lender before I made my offer . The vendor was a property management company. No chain. There were no issues with the structure of the property or access or anything else. It couldn't have been more straightforward but it still took the best part of two months for the solicitors to finalise everything!
I took a call from my solicitor one day who'd rang to inform me that way back in the 70s a previous owner had put a stipulation - (I can't remember the legal term) - on future owners/residents that they could not keep hens. Hens? I wanted to ask her if she was having a laugh but in the interests of moving things along I stated in my most serious tone that this wasn't going to be a problem as I wouldn't be keeping hens.

The process is now SLOWER than it was then. HOW

Part of the reason will be that the professional fees you'd pay today compared to 1986 will not have increased by the rate of inflation over the same period. The commodification of residential conveyancing means it needs to be done in volumes that are unmanageable for the individuals working on each file. It's also easier for people to chase up their solicitor via email, which can compound the problems overall (because your solicitor can't progress your case if they have to reply to 50 other clients chasing them for updates!). Not the fault of the individual clients, of course, but its the way it is when people (collectively) want the legals done for a tiny fixed fee whilst paying £££ to the estate agent!

If she hadn't had that conversation with you she'd be risking you suing her for not telling you.
That's why she had the conversation.
Not because she personally wanted to delay your move.

Yes but you can still implement better ways of working..

Of course there is. Father's solicitor charged per every single letter sent, every hour worked.

Conveyancers usually raise queries, whether cash buyers or not.

We are selling to a cash buyer! I'm in Scotland 🙈

Buying a house
And getting married

I've done both.

I tell you what shocked me about them both...

There's SOOOOO many fingers wanting to get into the pie.

Pay A fortune this.
Pay B for that.
Pay C for the other.
Pay D for god only knows.

No one will ever want to streamline weddings or house buying because too many people make a good living from them.

I've organised a funeral too, not my own though, that's later..
Much the same.

I swear some people hear House Buying.. marriage.. death.. and start rubbing their hands with glee..

Grabby grabby grabby

The last time I moved house I bought and sold and moved in 6 weeks.

the only stress was packing in time.

but I live in Scotland.

The English system seems bonkers to me. But perfectly easy to reform if there was a will to do it.

They have to raise queries or they'd be negligent?!?

Did you read and understand that the solicitor is making very little out of the transaction?
The estate agent will earn much more.