Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated

Nearly Legal has reported the demise of this blog. Not true. Terminological Inexactitudes lives on, although not necessarily here…

Bang goes that post

No doubt much to the disappointment of many bloggers, Sir Stephen Richards has been cleared of exposing himself. Damn.

What’s in a bedroom?

The fiasco of HIPs reaches new levels of absurdity, as reported by Human Law Mediation. Those clowns at the Department for Communities and Local Government certainly know how to make an even bigger disaster out of a disaster. Do any of these fuckwits actually know anything about buying and selling property?

Estate agent popularity at all time low

It gives me great no pleasure to hear that the number of complaints against estate agents reached a record level last year. The only thing that surprises me is that, according to this BBC report, the ‘main grudges’ were bad manners and aggressive sales tactics. Why is it that the extortionate amount of their fees (over seven times what a solicitor charges for dealing with the sale conveyancing) doesn’t cause the biggest number of complaints?

Power of persuasion

Well, it just shows the power wielded by Terminological Inexactitudes. Only two days after I posted about it, the government announces that the introduction of HIPs is to be delayed. Now all they have to do is scrap them completely…

A show of hands

With it’s usual contempt for dissenting voices, the government is intent upon implementing HIPs on 1st June.

Hands up any conveyancers who think they will be a good thing?

I thought not.

On the ball

Nice to see that our judiciary is on the ball as usual. The Telegraph today reports an “internet terrorism” trial in which the judge admitted that he had no idea what a website was.

Reminds me of this Not the Nine O’Clock News sketch. I wonder if Mr Justice Openshaw knows what a ‘deluxe model inflatable woman’ is?

Waxing Lyrical

Damn, I’ve been trying to remember the lyrics of an Ian Dury song. While I try to recall them, I thought I’d review some recent legal developments:

– The implementation of HIPs draws ever closer and will, we are assured, solve all the problems of the conveyancing process. Bollocks.

– The CLS has forced through the new legal aid contract, which in turn will force more firms out of business.

– This week the profession received more good publicity when an MP complained on the BBC about greedy lawyers, referring to the miners compensation claims.

– The third money laundering directive is on it’s way, and will mean that solicitors will basically be liable for any criminal activity committed by their clients.

Oh yes, I’ve remembered those lyrics: “arseholes, bastards, fucking cunts and pricks…”

Who are the fat cats?

Just received a completion statement in the post today. Sale price £240,000. Estate agents fees £3,600 plus VAT. Solicitors fees (not my firm) £500 plus VAT. Nothing unusual about that you might say, and you’d be right. Hold on a minute… the estate agents, who cursorily inspected the property, wrote up some particulars and advertised it charged THREE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED POUNDS more than the solicitors, who did all the conveyancing work. Why the fuck do most sellers accept this?  Christ, if the solicitors tried to charge that much they’d be complaining from the tree tops. And don’t give me any of that crap about advertising fees and the two things not being comparable – when I started out in this profession some twenty seven years ago solicitors and estate agents charged about the same. Since then, whilst we’ve capitulated to pressures to keep our fees down (with the result that we’re barely making any profit on the work), estate agents have been allowed to quietly increase their fees so that the type of figures mentioned above have become acceptable.

As there is little prospect of property sellers waking up to the fact that they’re being screwed, my advice to any aspiring ‘fat cat’ is to forget about becoming a lawyer with all that training and outside interference by regulators, and become an estate agent instead.

Job satisfaction

When I started this blog the intention was to use it as a place to rant about things about this job that get up my nose. As I said at the outset, I only intended to post occasionally. Recently, however, I’ve had fewer and fewer things to rant about. Don’t get me wrong – I still get bothered about the usual things: legal aid, the Law Society, estate agents and pointless ‘quality marks’. However, even those haven’t been concerning me so much of late. Shit – what’s happening to me? God forbid I’m becoming satisfied. Next thing you know I’ll be going to local law society meetings and putting myself forward for some bloody committee. Christ, this is getting serious…