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House sales
When selling or buying houses, do not rely on your solicitor. The estate agent often has a better idea what is going on, and has a stronger incentive to get things moving.
If you can establish good relations with the actual buyer/seller, even better. The person living in the house we were buying for our daughter (he was the son of the deceased) was an enormous help in all kinds of ways. Really nice guy and happy that a family was moving into the house he had grown up in. Showed us all the stuff that the solicitors claimed to know nothing of, from the cavity wall insulation certificates to the stop cock. (the house was being sold through an asset management company and they took the legal line that they were not responsible for passing on information about the property as they had no personal knowledge of it)
When the chain kept wobbling because communications via the asset management company were so poor, David, ,my daughter, myself and one of the estate agents were by passing the solicitors to keep communications flowing up and down the chain as to what was actually happening and where the hold ups were.
Things were so tight that we ended up exchanging and completing on the same day (poor David was up against a really tight deadline on his move, and he would have hit real problems if the move was delayed any longer.) I made sure our money was with the solicitor several days in advance, so that we'd be able to exchange quickly when the moment came. Least we could do for him.)
I'm finding the same thing on the sale. The estate agent knows more than the solicitor -especially as my contact at the solicitor is on holiday...
If you can establish good relations with the actual buyer/seller, even better. The person living in the house we were buying for our daughter (he was the son of the deceased) was an enormous help in all kinds of ways. Really nice guy and happy that a family was moving into the house he had grown up in. Showed us all the stuff that the solicitors claimed to know nothing of, from the cavity wall insulation certificates to the stop cock. (the house was being sold through an asset management company and they took the legal line that they were not responsible for passing on information about the property as they had no personal knowledge of it)
When the chain kept wobbling because communications via the asset management company were so poor, David, ,my daughter, myself and one of the estate agents were by passing the solicitors to keep communications flowing up and down the chain as to what was actually happening and where the hold ups were.
Things were so tight that we ended up exchanging and completing on the same day (poor David was up against a really tight deadline on his move, and he would have hit real problems if the move was delayed any longer.) I made sure our money was with the solicitor several days in advance, so that we'd be able to exchange quickly when the moment came. Least we could do for him.)
I'm finding the same thing on the sale. The estate agent knows more than the solicitor -especially as my contact at the solicitor is on holiday...
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Mind you, our solicitor was really good about making sure that the vendors were kept up to scratch, eg replacing a tree with a TPO which had blown down.
But absolutely, being on good terms with the other people in the chain is really helpful. The previous time we moved, we did our own conveyancing, and the vendors' solicitors were most unhelpful towards us, to their clients' detriment. Fortunately we could trot down the road and speak to the people who were trying to sell us their house and get shot of their bridging loan!
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