The head of a removals trade body has called for conveyancing problems to be sorted out which cause delays or logistical nightmares.
She has drawn particular attention to the CHAPS extension time that is being implemented this summer, on June 20.
CHAPS (Clearing House Automated Payment) is the system used to make large same-day payments in the UK, typically mortgage money transfers.
The extension time is just one hour and 40 minutes – to 6pm – but removals firms say this will be long enough to cause major problems.
The Bank of England says that one reason for the extension is to mitigate risks and introduce more flexibility.
A number of conveyancers have also welcomed the extension, arguing that it could take pressure off on busy completion days.
But Jane Finch, of the Professional Movers Association, said that the extension could mean removal companies will refuse to deliver late into the evening.
She said: “Not only is it dangerous to deliver in the dark, removal companies are bound by EU working time directive and strict legal driving hours, so removers can’t be expected to keep unloading late if the keys don’t get handed over at lunchtime.”
She warned that removers are currently looking at the possibility of including within their terms and conditions, a 4pm or 4.30pm cut-off time if the keys have not yet been handed over, meaning that many simple one-day moves will extend into two days.
She said another possibility might be that furniture will have to be delivered into storage and re-delivered out at the remover’s convenience.
Finch said: “As much as removers want to help their clients move home, the unorganised and last-minute exchange and completion process is already causing a great strain on removal companies.
“Expecting them to hang around for several hours, waiting for keys that might not even arrive until 6.30pm or 7pm, is totally unreasonable.
“That is especially the case when they may have hundreds of miles to drive home following the delivery, and have to be back at work by 7am or 8am the following morning, just in case the next completion goes through at lunchtime.
“The uncertainty of not knowing if it will be a one or two day move, is set to cause even more confusion and stress.”
She added: “It is in everyone’s best interest to try and sort out the issues sooner rather than later.
“Transferring mortgages the day before completion is a simple answer. However, with money laundering safeguards, what seems like a simple solution, is proving to be a very testing issue.”
Finch also criticised same-day exchanges and completions, and the desire of people to move on Friday.
She said these are also ready causing a “chaotic nightmare”.
She said: “Short notice between exchange and completion leaves customers and removal companies very little time to plan and book the removal day.
“Friday and end of the month completions result in not enough removal vans to go round, and delayed completion causes stress and uncertainty for everyone in the chain, not to mention cancellation charges to consumers if organisation of the furniture removal falls through at the last minute.”
A new conveyancing committee has been set up and will meet tomorrow. Attending on behalf of the NAEA will be ex-Property Ombudsman Christopher Hamer.
Comments (18)
Above, Mr Hailstone quotes the following he states received from another conveyancer
“I have noticed recently that transactions with Online Agents (such as Purple Bricks etc) are almost stress free… They just leave us to get on with it!”
Interesting – when you consider that ALL Call-Centre ‘Estate Agents’ claim that their sale progression is top-notch; that they go far and beyond what you would expect from we mere mortal traditional Luddites.
A recent case springs to mind where a frail elderly lady undergoing treatment for that most cruel disease known and feared as cancer was stuck in limbo for almost FIVE MONTHS for her sale (and onward purchase of the property we were selling to her) to proceed to exchange of Contracts. The Agent below us was, frankly, abysmal – said that there was nothing they could do to chivvy things along as “that solicitor has their own speed they work to”.
I rang said stuck-up individual for the ‘n’th time – to be told that she was disgusted that an ultimatum had been issued by our vendor’s solicitor to effect an exchange or return the Contract. Her pretty much exact words were “I mean – what is the rush to exchange all about?”
When I firmly (not like me, I know… I’d had a bad day…) pointed out to her that every day her client’s buyer went without exchanging was a day that the buyer could withdraw from the purchase she simply said that ‘the Agent would then have to earn their fee and sell it again!’
Beggars belief.
That would be the ONE fee that said Agent would be able to claim. Not the ‘abortive sale fee’ that many conveyancers can and do charge when things go wrong – for whatever reason.
Yodelling from Ivory Towers comes to mind – and proves to me at least that certain people are definitely not in the real world where their clients require them… and rely on them… to be.
Strikes me Rob you need to take the blinkers off. If you are going to post comments, you can expect replies if they are nuts! It seems you have backed yourself into a corner with a very narrow minded point of view. There are good conveyancers but the bane of my life is the ones in call centres who frankly have no idea compared to the local conveyancer. It is often these call centres that often get it wrong, wait weeks for contract enquiries which they don’t often understands the reply as they have no local knowledge ….. the list is long. Frankly you do not understand estate agency and contract/service we have with our customers to monitor and assist the conveyancing process. I wish we didn’t need to but the reality is that without agents input many a sale would have fallen through due to incompetence, poor admin and time management. Yes there are good conveyancers but I have yet to put call centres near the top, who can only say, “we are still awaiting replies” when they had it 3 weeks ago and “But it’s not showing on my computer”.
I just wonder how many conveyancers actually realise how much agents do help them, rather than consider them a hindrance (true at times) and as interfering so and so’s that expose their incompetence when the hat fits.
“This is not the place to try to explain the conveyancing process, it would take far too long.”
Sorry? Strange comment to make as nobody asked you to.
“Not trying to wind anyone up, just relay the views of some conveyancers about some estate agents, in the hope that the penny may drop.”
As far as I can see that is ONE view from ONE conveyancer. And one which I could probably get 100 of his/her colleagues to rubbish.
Most of us are guilty at some time or another of commenting on issues etc we know very little about. Maybe my comment about removers and the dark falls into that category.
This is not the place to try to explain the conveyancing process, it would take far too long. I remember my first boss saying to me:
“It will take you at least 12 years to fully understand conveyancing and land law.” How right he was (he didn’t mean just me by the way).
Not trying to wind anyone up, just relay the views of some conveyancers about some estate agents, in the hope that the penny may drop.
A few minutes after posting my last comment this came in:
“I was interested to read a recent comment about Estate Agents calls, which I think it is safe to say are the bane of most conveyancers lives.
I have noticed recently that transactions with Online Agents (such as Purple Bricks etc) are almost stress free. The online Agent has already been paid so has no “agenda” to meet targets and bully clients to complete at the end of a month etc and has no desire to provide constant “feedback” to justify inflated fees. They just leave us to get on with it!
As I suspect that online Agents will be taking over this sector (High Street Agents certainly seem to be concerned about them- as are large Conveyancing firms paying referral fees to High Street Agents) could we as local Conveyancers face a brighter future?”
Discuss?
Whoever made this comment to you could well be considered, by many in the Estate Agency profession, to be a complete imbecile.
Some could even suggest that you are simply winding the majority of the EYE readership up.
Either way – discuss?
PeeBee, Woodentop, without wishing to get into a slanging match, your comments make it clear how little some agents know about conveyancers and the conveyancing process.
Lenders can still withdraw, under certain circumstances, between exchange and completion. Thankfully that is rare.
As a conveyancer my working hours were 5.00 am until 7.00 pm most week days and another five or so over a weekend. I accept most conveyancers have a life and don’t work like that but I know many who are in before 7.00 am, still at work after 6.00 pm and work weekends and bank holidays. But like me, they keep the doors shut and the phone lines off so they can actually get on with the work they are being paid to do (read the legal papers and report to clients etc) without constant interruptions by phone, email and unexpected visits.
Mr Hailstone
“without wishing to get into a slanging match, your comments make it clear how little some agents know about conveyancers and the conveyancing process.”
Funny, that – sounds like the perfect opening shat for a slanging match to me…
I have been working in this industry for a period that spans five decades – and I am certainly not ashamed to say that I learn something every day about my job and the industry.
What I ‘know about the conveyancing process’ should, compared to YOUR intimate knowledge, be able to be written on the back of a fag packet. I don’t have a single problem with that. If I need to know – I have plenty of resource to call upon from the many hundreds of conveyancers and solicitors I have built up excellent business and personal relationships with over the years.
Similarly, if you want to know the difference between a bargeboard and a Bison Beam, I would expect you to be able to ‘phone a friend’.
Instead of trying – and failing – to make me feel or look inadequate, perhaps a more fitting option would have been to answer the perfectly reasonable questions I posted, having never in all my experiences come across such an occurrence which you yourself describe as “rare”.
As it is – I will get my answers from my ever-reliable sources – and continue to learn as a result.
Thank you for highlighting the potential issue.
You may be surprised to learn PeeBee that the humungously large lorries that travel the highways and byways of our fair land every night, don’t hold a couple of plastic bags etc. Often they will have large pallets of goods larger than your average grand piano. Well lager than the one in the vestibule of Hailstone Manor!
Also, simply signing a Mortgage Deed doesn’t make it binding, and the lender doesn’t receive a copy of the Mortgage Deed. It goes off to the Land Registry, after completion.
I think a 21 day working day period between exchange and completion used to be the norm. However, we live in a ‘we want it now’ society.
No, actually – I’m not surprised in the least. Mt brother is a long-distance lorry driver – has been all his working life.
Those “large pallets of goods” you refer to are moved around with the aid of a forklift truck – so not really the best of comparisons, I’m afraid.
Thank you for clarifying (somewhat) the Mortgage Deed issue – although I used incorrect terminology and should have said ‘Mortgage Offer Acceptance’.
Please advise, if said document is non-binding to the Lender to actually cough up, then how can a legally binding Contract be exchanged between buyer and seller? Where does that leave both parties – AND their Legal Representation – if the funds are pulled at the 24th hour?
And HGV’s travel through the night because logistics are taken into account that makes it work within their legal driving hours. Regrettably conveyancers don’t, they do it at their pace shut shop at 5.00pm, don’t work weekends or lunch time.
Having been in the industry for decades, it never ceases to amaze me how some conveyancers have everything ready weeks in hand, while others leave it all to the last minute. We now live in a digital age which conveyancing seems to be dragging its feet in that department. The vast majority of delays I have experienced has been down to poor admin and communication. The story has a valid point for it is at this last hurdle that some of our customers through no fault of their own can’t get the keys earlier enough in the day and this is likely to give some a nervous breakdown at such a stressful time.
given that mortgage provider’s will withdraw morgage offers between exchange and completion the risk is too great if they are not on the same day.
Once a Mortgage Deed has been signed and returned by the purchasers’ Conveyancer to the Lender, surely it is binding?
Never used to be a problem ‘back in the day, ringi – and there was usually a 14-day period between exchange and completion.
I think I should clarify a few points:
“A number of conveyancers have also welcomed the extension, arguing that it will take pressure off on busy completion days.”
Conveyancers don’t think this will take the pressure off. Some believe it might allow people to complete when there is a delay, rather than end up in a hotel or in a property they don’t own, i.e. under licence.
“Dangerous to deliver in the dark.”
Really, what about all of the essential food and goods deliveries that go on around the country thorough the night?
I also don’t believe that many removers are currently looking at the possibility of including within their terms and conditions, a 4pm or 4.30pm cut-off time if the keys have not yet been handed over. Some welcome, and charge a healthy additional fee for working late.
Conveyancers always point out to their clients the risk of booking a completion date before contracts have been exchanged and would welcome a minimum time between exchange and completion (five working days at the least probably). However, for a variety of reasons (some understandable, new jobs, school term start dates etc) clients often insist on completion dates that aren’t always easily achievable.
However, I agree with Jane that “It is in everyone’s best interest to try and sort out the issues sooner rather than later.
.
If it’s too dangerous in the dark may as well not even both opening in December!
When these delivery guys deliver pallets of fresh and frozen goods they are in well lit depots. More often than not our house removals that happen after dark are in poorly lit estates or out in the countryside where the new property has little or no lighting in there gardens and wet slippery pathways. Id like to see these conveyancers out on the lorries for a day/night! It would be hilarious. Adding into our terms and conditions that our cut off point is 1630-1700 and may have to put their belongings into storage which will incur additional charges will simply scare our customers away and they will use the Cowboy removal companies that have no insurance to cover damages and dont care how many hours they work thus breaking the law.
Goodluck with this one as it will cause mayhem if it goes ahead.
Mr Hailstone – you say “what about all of the essential food and goods deliveries that go on around the country thorough the night?”
Come on – are you seriously comparing a couple of plastic bags (with the requisite 10p Government ‘environmental charge’ I hasten to add…) of spuds and tins of beans/Kattomeat/whatever to a stonking great dining table/settee/water bed that, when dropped, facilitates an insurance claim that would bankrupt yer average small South American country?
Respectfully, I think not.