Tradecraft tips

Speculative conveyancing 

A number of years ago in connection with a property sale I offered to forward the titles for examination in advance of conclusion of missives. I was rudely rebuked for my trouble. The purchasing solicitors said they did not indulge in speculative conveyancing.

When I am acting in a purchase I always specify that the missives shall not be deemed to be concluded until I have had sight of the titles. If I pick up a title fault the fact that the missives are still open gives the client the option to abandon the purchase without obligation. If missives are closed and the seller does not accept that the purchaser has a valid reason for resiling, matters could end up in court and this would create anxiety both for me and the client. I would rather risk wasting an hour or two looking at titles in a case where for some reason the transaction did not go ahead than try to withdraw from concluded missives, particularly where the seller had concluded missives to purchase another property on the strength of a concluded bargain for their existing property. 

Continuity

On two occasions in the recent past I have arrived at work to find a sale file on my desk with a note saying, please attend to the settlement of this transaction today. I had not previously seen the files in question.

As a precaution I have to read through the file just to be sure that everything needed for settlement has either been produced to the purchasing solicitor or is on order. This takes up valuable time, but it avoids the situation where the purchasing solicitor requests exhibition of something as a prerequisite to settlement and only then do you find that it has not been ordered. 

In all my sale files there is a checklist which is constantly updated to show what has been ordered and exhibited to date, and by the same token what remains to be ordered and exhibited. Anyone picking up the file for the first time can see in a matter of seconds exactly what stage the transaction has reached without having to read through the file.   

Ungrateful clients   

A client phoned one day to say that he was seriously in arrears with his mortgage payments. I spent about 20 minutes with him discussing the position and in the process I made a suggestion which might have allowed him to avoid having to sell the house.

The client phoned again a little while later. I spent another 15 minutes with him and it was agreed that he would put his house on the market. Draft sale particulars were duly prepared and sent out for approval. In response the client phoned and said “Can you put matters on hold?” I was puzzled by this, and three or four weeks later my suspicions were confirmed when I saw the house on the market for sale through another firm. I never discovered what I had done wrong, if anything at all. You have to be prepared for this sort of thing and not let it bother you. As long as you are clear in your own mind that you have done your best for the client, that is sufficient.  

Securing the transaction

I had a case once where clients were selling agricultural ground but retaining the farmhouse and an area of ground. One of the purchasers had definite “issues”; the purchasing solicitor made the mistake of trying to accommodate this and went through the most awful contortions in the process. Our clients were expected to fence off the retained ground to an accuracy of less than an inch and the purchasers were expecting the road verges to be included in the disposition, no doubt so that they could graze animals or plant crops right next to passing traffic! On my part I just had to accommodate the purchasing solicitor’s way of dealing with the transaction because my clients knew they were being offered a very good price for their ground and at all costs the deal had to be secured. 

Other solicitors

A former employer of mine, who started his own practice from scratch, once told me that the people who had caused him the most trouble during his career were not the clients but other solicitors. Jean Paul Sartre said “Hell is other people”. I sometimes wonder if Hell is other solicitors. 

If you are in an adversarial situation such as a divorce or an acrimonious dispute between neighbours, do not allow yourself to become a mouthpiece for your client. I had a case once where neighbours were wrangling over the precise location of a boundary, and the other solicitor sent me the most unpleasant letter I have ever received from another solicitor. He was simply venting his clients’ spleen. I did not reply. The letter contributed nothing at all to the eventual resolution of the dispute. If the other solicitor wanted to behave like that he was on his own. I was not going to engage in the process at that level in any shape or form.