Estate agent calls for more empathy over conveyancing delays
Conveyancers and estate agents need to get along and not be in a state of constant war, says Chelmsford Agent, Matt Baldock.
Chelmsford estate agent Matt Baldock is calling for more empathy between agents and their counterparts in the conveyancing industry.
Writing an open letter to Today’s Conveyancer Baldock says that on business networking platform LinkedIn his timeline seems to be a constant barrage of estate agents calling “conveyancers slow and lazy and our legal counterparts calling us thick and impatient”.
Baldock (pictured), a director and co-owner of David Casson Estate Agents, says that he believes both sides are wrong on certain points when it comes to the back and forth bickering that seems to endlessly take place.
“I have been [an estate agent] for over 20 years and I’m very proud of it. But I don’t have a side in this battle. I think both sides are in the wrong on certain points, but more importantly I know that we all want the same thing, that we need each other and that must learn to work together not only for our sake (financially and mentally), but for the sake of the clients.”
No-one working in conveyancing invented this system.”
“No-one working in conveyancing invented this system. They are no more to blame for the process than any working agent is for the ridiculous ‘no sale no fee’ model some genius lumbered us with many years ago.”
And he adds, “I’m going to dispel a popular myth here – estate agents are not chasing you purely because they need their commission to spend on diesel for the BMW and a night out at the latest wine bar.”
EMPATHY
“Lets show some empathy. We are all busy and we are both in industries where the demand seems to be to do more work for less money with every year that passes. But also, let’s just grow up and deal with the fact that neither industry is going anywhere and consider that our lives may actually get better if we work together.”
Whilst I agree that we should be more collaborative not combative, those on the “legal” side of this discussion do NOT help. I am not tarring all with the same brush but being told “I’ve got 400 emails and short staffed” would not cut it with my vendors. Nor would saying on my auto responder “your email will be printed off, attached to the file and dealt with in chronological order”. This was not the case before the pandemic. Likewise, as eluded to above, “commission chasers” have dumbed down the art of progressing a sale/purchase and the real benefit an agent can add when the motivation is the client not the cheque. I always say the lawyers deal with the black and white and the agent the colour in the middle, both sides need to realises that the other is valid and has it’s own challenges.