Read the latest offering from the ‘Diary of the High Street Conveyancer’
Tuesday 2 June 2020
I have had new instructions over the last week. It seems that the reopening of the market has led to people deciding that they want to move and it is interesting to note that many of those who have asked me to act are first time buyers . It is also interesting to note that many of those are young and live at home with parents, and I have been wondering if it is because the young couples have been forced to spend time apart, have had to live with parents with no space to go out other than the daily exercise, and have just decided now is the time to invest in property.
But what I find really interesting is that many of these are young and bearing in mind that the evidence shows that the age of first time buyers has increased significantly over the last thirty years, I wonder if this is now a turning point and , where they can afford to do so, younger people will start buying properties.
These are people who have been born during my career so for the client’s entire life, I have been sitting behind my desk, dealing with the same conveyancing problems. What has changed is the way that the work is done – emails and the internet did not exist when I first started working – and also the detail of the work and the volume of regulation.
For example, FENSA certificates – introduced nearly twenty years ago – so it is difficult to remember what it was like before we had to check the FENSA website ; the array of searches that we can now do and the volume of information that is available is immense. We have grown with those changes – but imagine the clients at the other end of the age range: those who have not moved for many years and then you will see how much the process has changed.
We would like to live as we once lived, but history will not permit it
