Clients want a conveyancer who is experienced and communicates with them in a proactive and timely manner.
Our research clearly shows that clients would be willing to pay several hundred pounds more for a speedy, efficient transaction by an experienced conveyancer. The disappointment of poor communication, painfully slow transactions and negligent conveyancing is something clients are unable to anticipate. As a result, they often choose a conveyancer on price, without being aware of what they should be looking for. What they really want is a conveyancer who will deal with their transaction in a timely manner, explain issues in plain English and give them the attention they need to become comfortable with the process.
In fact, what you want is also an experienced conveyancer with good communication skills who uses state of the art technology to complete transactions quickly.
The sooner a transaction completes, the happier the client is, the quicker you get your commission and the faster you get onto your next transaction. An estate agent dealing with six cases could be dealing with up to 12 solicitors (one for each side). You could save hours per week on chasing conveyancers by choosing a trusted, high quality solicitor and reduce the number of solicitors that you work with.
You can use the following list of questions to help you to identify a top quality law firm:
1. What are your legal fees?
Make sure you get the conveyancing firm’s fee structure to understand the sort of fees your clients will be charged. Also make sure that any referral fees that are paid is paid from those stated fees and clients are not given a different inflated quote to cover referral fees.
2. How large is your firm?
Larger firms will process a higher volume of cases and benefit from economies of scale; this should allow them to pass on larger referral fees to you. However, stay away from factory line processing conveyancing firms. A small firm is likely to have higher overheads per conveyancing case and be less able to manage employee absences and holidays, which could cause disruption to your own business.
3. What other estate agents or mortgage brokers do you work with?
Conveyancers who work with a variety of national, regional and local estate agents and mortgage brokers will be able to work better with you as they are likely to have service level agreements and be better trained. Conveyancers who work with only a few local estate agents or mortgage brokers are likely to be worse at handling your case and you would experience low quality and speed if the conveyancer is on holiday, absent or has too many cases. Larger firms will generally have the resources to manage this. Get references and testimonials.
4. Do you pay referral fees?
You want to make sure you build a link with a firm that are set up to pay referral fees and are able to do so without you chasing them all the time for payment. You also need to make sure you are aware of what, if any, VAT element is on the referral fee. Referral fees vary from £50 to £200, but do not be lured in by this if the other questions are not answered to your satisfaction. Remember your commission is also at stake and that is possibly much larger than this.
5. Do you cover all properties in England and Wales?
Your client does not need to use a conveyancing firm which is geographically close to your client. It is now possible for the entire conveyancing process to be conducted by e-mail, telephone and post. An ‘arms-length’ service can be provided by conveyancing firms which have invested in their process management. Clients generally prefer conveyancing services where they do not need to attend meetings in person.
6. Do your conveyancers specialise in residential conveyancing only?
A conveyancer who deals only with residential conveyancing will be office based and contactable at all times. A conveyancer who covers different areas of law such as family law and immigration may have to visit court regularly, which may compromise the standard of service they provide to you.
7. Can you commit to a Service Level Agreement?
A good conveyancing firm should have a Service Level Agreement that they can commit to. These are generally drafted to set minimum standards and provide a guideline of what to expect. A good conveyancer should be able to exceed the expectations set out in the Service Level Agreement. You should always ask for a copy of their SLA – if they do not have one, alarm bells should start to ring because their service is likely to be unpredictable.
8. How does your firm process a transaction?
Look for a firm where each conveyancer takes responsibility for the conveyancing transactions they take on. Avoid firms with outdated factory line processing, where there are many scantly trained paralegals handling segments of a case and passing it on. This often results in files being passed around the office, everyone blaming each other, post going missing, and you calling half a dozen people before talking to someone that can help.
9. Do you use a Case Management System for moving cases along?
Many conveyancing firms do not have the resource to invest in case management systems and consequently work reactively rather than pro-actively. Thus the conveyancer would not chase other-side solicitor for a reply until you or the client calls to remind him, he wont deal with all the enquiries because he would not be driven by a system which has a comprehensive checklist; he will probably not remember about an exchange until the day arrives and he will at the eleventh hour ask your client to deposit 10% of the purchase price into his client account. A case management system (if used properly) will enable the conveyancer to be pro-active.
10. Do you have an online case tracker with real-time update facility and SMS updates?
This enables you and your client to stay up to date with what is happening on a case at a time that is convenient to you. There are two types of Case Management System: a less advanced system which is updated manually by the conveyancer and a more advanced system which is updated in ‘real-time’ as soon as a conveyancer does any work on a case. The former is less expensive and most commonly used by small high street firms, and is likely to be out of date and of no value to you because the conveyancer may not get around to updating it for a couple of days. Only larger specialist conveyancers are able to make the heavy investment into the more expensive system which can give you real-time updates.
11. Can you give me a dedicated conveyancer for a referrer?
A good conveyancing firm should be able to offer you this. Building a relationship with one conveyancer will allow both parties to become accustomed to each other’s working practices. All companies will have some movement between employees and cases; however, this should not be the norm. With a dedicated conveyancer your relationship will become strong and trusting that you would be able to confidently rely on your conveyancer.
12. Can you provide me with mid-week updates?
A good conveyancing firm should offer weekly email (or fax) updates on each conveyancing case. Since clients usually want to know the progress of their case by the weekend (and because most cases complete on a Friday), this gives you enough time to receive the update and deal with any questions from your client.
13. Do you have an online instruction and quote generation system I can use?
This will give you the advantage of being able to tie in a client while they are in the office and save time. Online instructions will speed up your case by as much as two days.
14. How do you comply with the Solicitors Regulatory Authority requirements?
The SRA requirements are strict on referral fees and you must ensure they are in compliance and are openly addressing the issue. The firms that hide from these requirements will not be a long term partner and they may even withhold referral fees from you.
15. Do you provide a monthly management information (MI), activity and forecast report?
This will allow you to monitor the activity of your chosen conveyancer and prepare for the following month more efficiently. The conveyancer should be able to provide information such as pipeline conversion rate, completions, exchanges, income, average property price of transactions and many other key performance indicator reports. Good case management systems should be able to auto-generate these reports.
16. Do you provide additional conveyancing services?
For example home information packs, energy performance certificates, referral fees, account managers and dedicated conveyancers are provided by good conveyancing firms that work with estate agents and mortgage brokers.
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