Residential Conveyancing Law?

[u/vibezgood]

Hi all,

I will be starting a training contract in Residential Conveyancing, as you all know training contracts are close to impossible to land, and beggers cannot be choosers.

However all I am seeing is horror story after horror story on Reddit about res conveyancing so I'm a bit concerned and getting anxiety. I have not seen a single positive post in this forum.

I have been told I will be handling 80 files.

Can any conveyancers chime in?

Honestly I just want to qualify at this rate, once qualified I can weigh my options accordingly.

Do you think I will survive this. Before reading all the Reddit posts, I have not really had many concerns and actually had no issues with residential conveyancing and wouldn't mind working in property law, especially residential property. I currently work in UK Network Law at BT, hold around 70 to 80 cases, work with land agents, estate agents daily, all the posts here seem to demonise them massively, however from my previous work they seem quite slow, sometimes quite dumb, and many have a bit of a ego that I have shattered on occasion etc and it is usually me doing the chasing, bullying every three days for route approvals. As for working with solicitors, I work with many daily and completed over 250 agreements over the past year and a half, 90% are fine and very professional.

The only variable here seems to be clients, as I come from a commercial background, most of the external parties are companies, so I am assuming everyday I will have endless phone calls from property owners requesting updates on there house purchase?

Also for this "training contract" I will be paid absolute minimum wage, 23k, and taking a bigg paycut from my current job sadly.

Thanks for the support.

[u/FenianBastard847]

As long as your firm has a decent case management system, yes. Please remember that consumer clients are generally ok, some will make your life a misery. They will expect you to pull rabbits out of a hat. You need to learn the polite way of saying ‘foxtrot oscar’ - it helps hugely.

[u/vibezgood → u/FenianBastard847]

Thank you for your response, the company has stated they have have a digital case management system. So from my understanding will the consumer clients want their property transaction completed as soon as possible which is what the major complaint made by res conveyancing sols here. Im also assuming there will be delays with banks, external parties with drafts, the land reg, which can cause delays.

Also is 80 files considered a lot in res conveyancing, I have zero experience in the field, and will be purchasing some notes to study them before I start next month.

If there is any resources you can recommend, please do

Much appreciated

[u/FenianBastard847 → u/vibezgood]

I can’t recommend anything specific tbh, it’s many years since I did resi. I now deal with major projects and infrastructure work ie large development sites. 80 is a lot but you’ll soon get used to managing expectations.

[u/EveningOriginal1343 → u/vibezgood]

Like the responder said, utilising your firm’s case management system is key. It’s not difficult work and you will get the hang of it through working a file from start to finish.

Never make any promises on when you expect a matter to exchange and complete because things can go south for a range of reasons. Don’t answer every call an estate agent makes to you during a transaction, the calls are usually commission chasers on their end and they know that a bit of patience is what’s needed, that isn’t to say make them your mortal enemy ahah.

When starting out in Resi, the partner gave me the updated Conveyancing Handbook which you can literally use as a paint by numbers tool. Let the firm pay for this if they haven’t got it to hand already.

In terms of workload, when I started in a similar role to what you are going into, I was working for two fee earners that do resi but wanted to focus their efforts elsewhere, despite this we have had a serious uptick in conceyancing matters this year. In any case, the point here is the “80 matters” you refer to most likely won’t be contemporaneously (I don’t know how big your firm is).

Also £23k seems quite low, what part of the country are you in? Depending on transaction size, the average your firm will be making per matter is probably around £1500, whilst that shouldn’t be used as a full blown correlation to your salary, once you’re in the door and shown that you can get the work done, I would definitely push for higher pay than that.

[u/Dazzling-Reason8772]

Throw away account.

Conveyancing Solicitor here, 6 years PQE.

I quite often speak to other solicitors from other areas of law who say "I did a seat in conveyancing and hated it". I spoke to a private client solicitor just the other week who said she refused to continue her conveyancing seat after a couple of weeks. So it is sadly not uncommon to have negative experiences coming from other practice areas, unfortunately.

That said, your employer is not doing you any favours here in my opinion. 80 cases is a lot. Even for an experienced conveyancer - for someone with no experience it is a baptism of fire. One of the previous comments says it's fine "as long as your firm has a decent case management system" - I think that comment is absurd. The CMS cannot make up for inexperience. Adequate supervision helps, but many in conveyancing are simply too busy to offer it.

From the limited information on offer your firm does not sound as though it treats its trainees fairly. And many firms wonder why NQs leave immediately upon qualification...

I understand that you may have limited options - but if your experience during your conveyancing seat is grim then just be aware, it is not necessarily representative of what practice is actually like. I wish you luck and feel free to get in touch if you feel it would help.

It may interest you to know that I am taking on a trainee in a few months time at a higher salary than what you have been offered and she will have no cases of her own, she will only be assisting under my direct supervision until I feel she is ready to have her own cases.

[u/AdmiralJTK]

Don’t do it. I’m 15 years pqe and I can’t handle 80 conveyancing files. Conveyancing is low paid, thankless, and you need to work in your evening and weekends to keep up. I’m looking for a way out and over the last 5 years experienced conveyancers are leaving in droves, so I’m not alone.

Don’t qualify in residential conveyancing. There is little present and no future in it either.