“Every Little Helps ”
Many of you will recognise my heading today as the sales pitch of Tesco who, no doubt at vast expense, engage celebrities to endorse their services under this strap line. It is fascinating that whilst during the years of this Government, professions have increasingly come under attack, supermarkets certainly have thrived. These days Tesco do everything from mars bars to money lending, from pizza to payphones, and from cucumbers to car insurance. One even hears of Tesco jails! Where, I ask, does their ambition end? Clearly they now want to be lawyers, and are throwing their enormous budgets and misguided PR team at the property conveyancing market.
Unfortunately, their PR team has managed to upset the legal profession, which is not particularly easy. They have done so by their advertising, particularly certain remarks in their website “Your Lawpacks Guide to Conveyancing”.
It is not clear where the information on this website came from, but it is clearly wrong and frankly upsetting for the legal profession.
They say “A solicitor is a general legal practitioner, whilst a licensed conveyancer is a specialist who concentrates solely on dealing with the property”. They go on “Solicitors can be slow to respond, and won’t necessarily rate your property sale as their highest priority. Because licensed conveyancers do nothing but conveyancing, they have been able to streamline the whole process, which may give you a better service”.
Personally I have absolutely nothing against licensed conveyancers. However, Tesco’s remarks are simply stupid, and I think that that is the reason why the legal profession has reacted so badly to them.
There are many solicitors, and solicitors practices who depend more on property conveyancing than on anything else, and to suggest therefore that they will not necessarily rate your sale as the highest priority is simply untrue. Furthermore, there is nothing to suggest that licensed conveyancers, just because they are licensed conveyancers, have been able to streamline the whole process. The fact of the matter is that they have not largely, which is why the equally misguided Government insists on idiotic expensive and time wasting exercises such as Home Information Packs.
We are a modest size practice based in Banbury. We have a total personnel of some 125.
As it happens we employ around 40 people who do nothing but property work. It is done to the highest standards attainable, and it is done using the very latest conveyancing software. We have invested something over £10,000.00 in software that just produces Home Information Packs.
The fact of the matter is that the purchase of a house is the largest transaction that most of us will ever enter into in our lives. Care must be taken in the purchasing process. Quite why the Government and Tesco and others are besotted with the idea of reducing the conveyancing process by a few hours has never failed to surprise me. When buying something of that value, surely it is better to take a little time. That does not mean to say that solicitors who do conveyancing take time. We and other firms can be as quick as the client wants us to be, or the seller lets us be.
One of the sad aspects of this, of course, is that there is an etiquette within the legal profession, and for the most part, we are not rude or critical about our competitors. There is no point. It is a great pity that the new kid on the block feels it necessary to be quite so rude and unpleasant about a profession that it probably knows little, if anything about.
To add insult to injury, of course, this Government appears over the 10 years of its term to have done as much as possible to dilute the various professions including the legal profession, whilst allowing the supermarkets to do whatever they want.
We cannot compete with the marketing budgets of the supermarkets, and so we have to depend on honesty. We do not sell gherkins, and do not really want to. What we and other solicitors do is sell a professional service. Whilst licensed conveyancers are doubtless excellent, indeed we employ licensed conveyancers, sometimes a solicitor is needed because not all conveyancing transactions are straightforward. There can be any number of issues that need to be identified.
Despite protestations from the legal profession Tesco apparently stands by every word on its website, and will not therefore be persuaded to change it. How very sad, indeed how very pathetic. Just to change a few words would in fact make the website a little more honest, and as Tesco preach, every little helps.
