What is hacking you off today?

[RHB]

Wife's birthday friday and I'm totally stumped into what to buy her from myself and young 'un.

National Trust membership?

 

[RHB]

Buying a new smart phone. Existed quite happily for the last few years with a Samsung J3, but sadly it has just died. Bought a new Samsung J6 and spent ages trying to work out how to take the back off......turns out you can't. Finally read the guide and you have to stick a pin in the side of the phone to insert your sim card. Managed that, tried sticking my micro sim in it and discovered I need a nano sim...........feeling prety ****ed off at this stage. All better now after a trip to the o2 shop and a new nano sim in my mits. Car Phone warehouse, thanks for not telling chimps like me about the wonderful new features of modern phones...total bastards.

 

[MK Shrimper]

National Trust membership?

Already a member chap. In the end I got her a voucher for a spa day. Hardly original but I've already got a nice necklace and she's out to see Wicked and a posh restaraunt. Spoilt!

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

Does paying more for a solicitor you'd get a better service and/or speed the sale along though?

Definitely.

You can go to a conveyancing factory which is churning them out and yours is at the bottom of a thousand files and they'll get round to it when it works it way to the top of their pile or you can go to somewhere where you'll get more personal service but you'll pay for the privilege of it.

If I was being defended for murder I'd want (but could never afford) the best, but for the mundanity of conveyencing?

Buying a house is reputedly the biggest financial decision an individual makes. I'd want to have someone who knows what they are doing reviewing my file rather than some undertrained and overworked paralegal who has to complete each review in 20 minutes.

Conveyancing is notorious as the area of law with the most negligence claims.

Do you really need the very finest legal minds to buy a family home in Essex?

I imagine most of the work is done by semi skilled clerical staff and rubber stamped by some sort of Lionel Hutz style character.

That's not too far off. It doesn't need to be the finest mind but you'd want someone competent who will actually oversee and review the work and sign-off rather than the Lionel Hutz style character simply stamping it without reading the file.

 

[MK Shrimper]

I defer to your experience YB!

 

[Massimo Giovanni]

Wife's birthday friday and I'm totally stumped into what to buy her from myself and young 'un.

Take her to Dolly the musical show, west end, meal etc.

 

[Billy Bests boot laces]

Take her to Dolly the musical show, west end, meal etc.

Long round trip to cycle!.

 

[united we stand]

No reason to think it's not possible. It can be stressful and difficult (many times more so when you're buying AND selling), but our first purchase was pretty straight forward for instance, and even though solicitors have been a ballache, things with our current move have been relatively straight forward as well. If you're a first time buyer and bottom of the chain then in general you'll have the longest wait.

We bought a small piece of land of the church. Their solicitor in Chelmsford is in the same building with the same front door yet it was a two day turnaround to get a document from A to B ! I only found out when I hand delivered some paperwork to the solicitor”s office and saw the church nameplate on the same door ( I did the conveyancing myself as it was a simple transaction)

Needless to say once I knew this I got things moving a lot quicker.
Ps- solicitors hate it when you do your own conveyaing and/or chase them up. When I bought my house I spoke to my buyer and seller AND their solicitors AND the council.
You CAN speed things up if you are prepared to put the time in and are polite.
To them this is (quite reasonably) just another job, to you it’s the biggest financial purchase you will make. If you want to be more involved and take some control do it ?

 

[OldBlueLady]

Our own house purchase hit a minor delay yesterday because the enquiries raised by our solicitor on 19th March were "apparently" only received by our seller's solicitor (a notoriously bad one, which we raised concerns about at the outset) on Friday.

We've made sure everyone concerned knows that that solicitor is potentially lying, and their client is now hot on her case as she wants this done by the end of April.

Do estate agents have 'relationships' with local builders and property developers?
Properties ripe for redevelopment as four/five bed detached houses seem to get purchased in South Benfleet almost before the previous OAP owner has vacated the premises.

Trouble is that South Benfleet is full of builders and developers, and families of builders and developers. People "know" people. Properties sometimes change hands without even coming to the market because families have connections with builders and make private sales, which obviously saves them money.

Most agents do have relationships with builders, and it is often a benefit for a family to sell deceased relative's property to a builder because the terms can often be considerably in their favour. A builder will quite often pay the costs.

If you know the bottom of Avondale Road, you will know that three lovely bungalows have just been demolished on the corner. The builder there has been collecting them over the years until he had all three, and is planning to put six houses on the plot.

You'll also know that the Council rubber stamps many developments simply because of the targets set by Government so, all in all, SS7 is a developers' dream.

 

[MK Shrimper]

Take her to Dolly the musical show, west end, meal etc.

Wicked, hotel and a meal at Tozi.

 

[MK Shrimper]

I'd like to thank my brain for not allowing me to sleep until 1:30am and then getting me up at 6am despite me falling asleep in front of the telly before bed and setting my alarm for 7:30.

As you can imagine I feel delightful today.

 

[Freedom for Tooting]

National Trust membership?

National Front membership?

 

[Freedom for Tooting]

Wicked, hotel and a meal at Tozi.

Apparently the cool way to treat your chick if you are a young hipster is to suggest "Netflix and chill"?

An alternative, budget version (sourced from the VIz Profanisaurus) is "Freeview and ****"?

I love romance me.

 

[MK Shrimper]

National Front membership?

I did consider it. I fancied the beer & cheese evenings. Not so much the knit your own SS Waffen uniform.

Apparently the cool way to treat your chick if you are a young hipster is to suggest "Netflix and chill"?

I've highlighted the problem with your post. My hips are far from young.

 

[Benfleet A1]

The traffic is lighter in London during the school holidays and now the ULEZ. Yeah, bollocks it is, the last week has been the worst I have known it. One poxy load since 6am.

 

[Member]

Definitely.

You can go to a conveyancing factory which is churning them out and yours is at the bottom of a thousand files and they'll get round to it when it works it way to the top of their pile or you can go to somewhere where you'll get more personal service but you'll pay for the privilege of it.



Buying a house is reputedly the biggest financial decision an individual makes. I'd want to have someone who knows what they are doing reviewing my file rather than some undertrained and overworked paralegal who has to complete each review in 20 minutes.

Conveyancing is notorious as the area of law with the most negligence claims.



That's not too far off. It doesn't need to be the finest mind but you'd want someone competent who will actually oversee and review the work and sign-off rather than the Lionel Hutz style character simply stamping it without reading the file.

So the problem with conveyancy to a lay person like me is how do you find the right conveyancer/firm?

Both with EAs and with conveyancers you can ask friends and family for recommendations and in general that's been most effective for us previously but not perfect.

With EAs they come around, give you a valuation and the marketing spiel and that's a fairly helpful way to narrow things down, and ask questions to sound them out.

But with conveyancy it's really hard to judge - you'll get a fairly standard letter, a breakdown of the fees, but not much in the way of personal interaction. Often (and understandably) people who trust their EA/broker/developer etc will go with a recommendation, in general because there may be some financial benefit to do so (we're getting £1,500 from our new build developer for our legal fees for using a firm off their panel who apparently are new build specialists). They weigh up the pros and cons of trying to find someone completely independent but without an easy way to judge what they'll be like - do you get the more personalised approach or are they just churning things out and doing the bare minimum?

Otherwise you browse their website and reviews, check the fees are ok, and then give it a go.

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

So the problem with conveyancy to a lay person like me is how do you find the right conveyancer/firm?

Both with EAs and with conveyancers you can ask friends and family for recommendations and in general that's been most effective for us previously but not perfect.

With EAs they come around, give you a valuation and the marketing spiel and that's a fairly helpful way to narrow things down, and ask questions to sound them out.

But with conveyancy it's really hard to judge - you'll get a fairly standard letter, a breakdown of the fees, but not much in the way of personal interaction. Often (and understandably) people who trust their EA/broker/developer etc will go with a recommendation, in general because there may be some financial benefit to do so (we're getting £1,500 from our new build developer for our legal fees for using a firm off their panel who apparently are new build specialists). They weigh up the pros and cons of trying to find someone completely independent but without an easy way to judge what they'll be like - do you get the more personalised approach or are they just churning things out and doing the bare minimum?

Otherwise you browse their website and reviews, check the fees are ok, and then give it a go.

Yes, asking friends, family, colleagues is probably the way to go and it's not necessarily easy to find. Make sure you've got a named contact who'll be responsible for the work and their direct dial and e-mail address.

If you go with "a new build specialist" recommended by the developer, they'll have probably worked on that development before and will be basing your report on other properties in that development. Do you think a developer would recommend a firm whose report raises issues?

 

[Massimo Giovanni]

Pole Position. M/Cycle shop owner Berwick? big guy, has died of heart attack (few weeks ago actually) and business closed & gone. Friendly guy, loved his bikes, sad news.

 

[Ricey]

Pole Position. M/Cycle shop owner Berwick? big guy, has died of heart attack (few weeks ago actually) and business closed & gone. Friendly guy, loved his bikes, sad news.

RIP, he was a really nice guy. Have known him for years my dad used to go to his shop all the time when he had bikes.

 

[Firestorm]

Pole Position. M/Cycle shop owner Berwick? big guy, has died of heart attack (few weeks ago actually) and business closed & gone. Friendly guy, loved his bikes, sad news.

I had heard that Berick had died (Parkers M/c FB page had the news) but I didn't know the shop had shut, he used to run it with his brother . Bought my last two bikes off hime