Stupid Question Time
And today, Ladies and Gentlemen, we have Round One in the ding-dong correspondance battle between competing solicitors! On my left we have the solicitors for the purchasers; on my right we have our own solicitor! The solicitor on my right is a lovely fellow: reliable, intelligent, quick on the up-take, not prone to frivolous verbal excess either in person or by letter. The solicitors on my left can't read what is sent to them... Oh pardon me, I seem to be expressing a preference here - and actually while all this is going on I'm apparently supposed to maintain poise, dignity and temper.
Today we had ten 'Questions in advance of Contract' which is - as usual - an exercise in earning your fee rather than asking anything useful. For example, who is the energy supplier for the property? Not an unreasonable question to ask, although our purchasers are more than capable of emailing me to find out. But instead they chose to get their solicitor to do it, entailing one letter from their solicitor to our solicitor, a second letter from our solicitor to us, a third letter (accompanied by much sarcastic comment and groans when the system crashed taking my careful composition with it) from us to our solicitor, a fourth letter from our solicitor to their solicitor, and a fifth letter from their solicitor to them! Hooray - an increase in the Royal Mail's profits and an extra £100 in legal fees for me to tell them that our gas and electricity are both supplied by... EDF Energy!
But my particular favourite was question 9: "blah blah blah - how could a Certificate of Lawful Use have been issued if the work has not been undertaken?" This might have been a reasonable question were it not for the fact that had their solicitor read the title of the document in question properly s/he would have realised that it is called a 'Certificate of Lawfulness for a Proposed Use or Development', which kind of answers the question. Ding! Another £100 down the drain.
Now that we've answered the ten questions and completed the additional questionnaire confirming that there are no fishing rights or any requirement to maintain a harbour, wharf or quay on our property situated on a hill in Redland, one mile from central Bristol, I suspect that the ding-dong correspondence might go away. Or will it? Only the conveyancing solicitors amongst us know!
Today we had ten 'Questions in advance of Contract' which is - as usual - an exercise in earning your fee rather than asking anything useful. For example, who is the energy supplier for the property? Not an unreasonable question to ask, although our purchasers are more than capable of emailing me to find out. But instead they chose to get their solicitor to do it, entailing one letter from their solicitor to our solicitor, a second letter from our solicitor to us, a third letter (accompanied by much sarcastic comment and groans when the system crashed taking my careful composition with it) from us to our solicitor, a fourth letter from our solicitor to their solicitor, and a fifth letter from their solicitor to them! Hooray - an increase in the Royal Mail's profits and an extra £100 in legal fees for me to tell them that our gas and electricity are both supplied by... EDF Energy!
But my particular favourite was question 9: "blah blah blah - how could a Certificate of Lawful Use have been issued if the work has not been undertaken?" This might have been a reasonable question were it not for the fact that had their solicitor read the title of the document in question properly s/he would have realised that it is called a 'Certificate of Lawfulness for a Proposed Use or Development', which kind of answers the question. Ding! Another £100 down the drain.
Now that we've answered the ten questions and completed the additional questionnaire confirming that there are no fishing rights or any requirement to maintain a harbour, wharf or quay on our property situated on a hill in Redland, one mile from central Bristol, I suspect that the ding-dong correspondence might go away. Or will it? Only the conveyancing solicitors amongst us know!
posted by Sara Bowen at 10:13 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home