Dealing with solicitors is a key stress point for home movers, with lack of communication a significant problem.
Some 60% found that dealing with a solicitor was the most stressful part of buying or selling a home – and more than four in ten (42%) would be unlikely to use the same conveyancer again.
An issue for some home movers (29%) was that they felt out of touch during the conveyancing process. The average conveyance takes 11.3 weeks.
The findings are in a poll sponsored by Veyo, a new conveyancing portal due to go live this spring and which is a joint venture between the Law Society and IT firm Mastek UK.
The survey asked 2,000 respondents for their opinions.
Elliot Vigar, CEO of Veyo, said: “There is a long history of misgivings for the lengthy conveyancing process in England and Wales.
“An average conveyancing time of three months in our digital era is simply not good enough.”
Veyo plans to be able to let home movers track the conveyancing process online, as well as that of other properties in the chain.
Comments (4)
I completely agree. I'm just in the process of selling my own property, and the lack of communication from the agents and solicitors, as well as the need to constantly chase for updates, has amazed me. However, I'd always be skeptical of quoting as fact statistics such as these where the results are sponsored by a company who have a product or service to sell that just happens to benefit from the results.
It would help if the agent followed through to the end and updated the parties along the way. All too often I see agents switch off after a sale is agreed and don't explain what happens next and when etc. We operate a service with full co-operation of solicitors, where they contact us first when there is a delay or assistance required. The only ones that don't want to help are call centres … you know the ones, corporate agent owned!
Having a reliable conveyancer who works in office can be an invaluable tool. When Vendors or buyers use solicitors who have a reputation of lack of communication there is always a slight groan throughout the office.
Absolutely agree with this, it is one of the reasons why Buying Agent services such as ours is used so much more nowadays. Our close relationship with conveyancers means that we are much more likely to get timely updates and immediate contact in the event of any issues which can be dealt with straight away, thereby minimising the impact to the purchase/sale and the chain.
We aren't just about finding that dream home, there's a lot of work to be done afterwards!