Doing your own conveyancing

[Winston001]

I conveyed a farm purchase some years ago for a purchaser. The Vendor was an elderly man who paid $20,000 real estate agent fees but wanted to avoid lawyers so tried to do it himself.

Two months after settlement he realised he hadn't got the GST (which was held in my trust account) because he had no conception about dwelling and curtilage and how to construct a GST settlement statement. He eventually came in and bitterly said he was beaten, but I sent him off the another lawyer who completed the deal. It was a sad experience.

[ThePeakOilPoet]

DIY conveyancing is not for everyone - my blog frequently advises that a solicitor should be sought unless it is a simple case and there are no complexities - like GST

I will be extending the blog - currently it focuses on the purchaser but I have already had people contact me wanting details about how it works for a vendor

I intend to research and add sections on

Selling (currently almost complete)
GST
Strata titles
Buying & selling vacant land
Dealing with a lease
Discharging a mortgage

none of these things are particularly complicated

I think a DIY conveyancing blog must be a balance between providing information and providing advice to get a solicitor - such that people can make up their own minds based not on fear of the unknown but on weighing up the costs/benefits

Too many people see things in life as magically remote from their control - that experts in fields are like gods instead of just really well trained souls

pop

[ThePeakOilPoet]

There will always be a part of the market that can and will do it themselves. They need decent resources.

[Ivan McIntosh]

I really don't think you should view either GST, or strata titles given all the information requirements in the regulations, as not "particularly complicated", and I trust you're talking about residential tenancies and not commercial ones!

[ThePeakOilPoet]

As the blog attempts to convey - it's aimed at simple purchases of real estate - where the complexities are within the grasp of a normal and reasonable person. I could go off and do pages on strata as i could do the research for the GST issues (early training in strata titles, experience in GST and accounting).

Think of it like this - the system is set up as if every bridge that was ever built was as complicated as a harbour bridge.

It's not so friendly for someone who wants a rope bridge over a stream.

You should see the complexities of strata and tax implications of purchasing in a real country - i.e. one that is not flogging off everything to foreign buyers - the paper work is a nightmare and the rules are far more difficult to negotiate your way through than here.

Anyway, we know that here in NZ the number of people who do their own conveyancing is very low - less than 1%.

And, it would be nice to see some figures about disasters - and i don't mean anecdotes - i mean some solid figures to back up an attitude of "look what can go wrong".

Maybe it's like home birth or homeschooling - i've seen both (anecdotal), and fine results from each, but I've also read research papers.

Anyway, i don't think we disagree on it being advisable to use professionals - though the sum cost of them all can be a bit daunting. The usual case is not my interest.

:-)

[Ivan McIntosh]

No disrespect intended to you, because you're obviously putting the work in, but when the vendor or purchaser on the other side to my client tries to act for themselves it is always, and I mean always as in every single time, an incompetent mess which leaves us either standing around watching it become a trainwreck, or fixing it for them at our own cost on our own time, starting with re-writing the agreement for sale and purchase so that it uses comprehensible english. I don't have any statistical evidence, just anecdotal, but from experience I know I'm always going to be doing work for free when someone tries to do it themselves, and typically they view the lawyer on the other side as having a duty to help them and look after them. I know one lawyer that acted for a vendor with a purchaser representing themselves..the lawyer went out of their way to help the purchaser get the deal through and was rewarded a year later, after the GFC, with a law society complaint that the lawyer had acted for both sides and hadn't advised the purchaser not to go through with the deal.

I accept that there are simple transactions where someone can do their own work without representing a burden to the other side. Given there will always be people that try to do their own stuff, I guess your blog is a good idea.

[Wayne]

I know what you are saying.
Curious - was the complaint upheld?

[Ivan McIntosh]

Wasn't upheld, but wasn't rejected out of hand so they had a long and stressful time before it was disposed of, and had to spend a lot of time and effort in their replies.