Around 200 emails a day, early morning head starts before the phones started ringing non-stop from 9am and late-night finishes: a conveyancing solicitor has highlighted the relentless pressure she has been dealing with in the months leading up to the 30 June stamp duty deadline.

Writing in the Gazette today, solicitor Kate Atkinson, head of legal practice at conveyancing firm The Partnership, said she has worked in property for over a decade and ‘can safely say I have never experienced the relentless pressure I have seen over the past few months’.

She said: 'I was working from home for most of the time, which meant an early start of typically 7.15am to get started before the phone started ringing at 9am, which would continue throughout the day. I would normally not finish before 9pm and, even then, I still had a lot of tasks to complete for my clients which made it very difficult to leave my desk.'

Atkinson’s experience is not unique, with conveyancers across the country working late into the night to help home buyers and sellers beat this week’s stamp duty deadline. In Wales, the land transaction tax concession came to a hard end this week. A tapered rate is now in place for properties in England until the end of September.

Some bosses publicly thanked staff for their hard work. Bruce Faulkner, managing director and head of property at Norwich firm Rogers & Norton, said in a post on the firm's website: ‘The team have been absolutely magnificent. For several months now they have been dealing with significantly more transactions than normal without any fuss.’

The firm said in its busiest period to date, the team completed over 1,800 transactions since the stamp duty ‘holiday’ was announced last July.

Leeds firm Levi Solicitors tweeted a ‘thank you’ post, listing the names of 56 staff members ‘who have worked long and hard to make sure as many of our clients as possible could complete their house purchases before the end of the stamp duty holiday’.

  • 'How stressful was THAT?' Conveyancing solicitor Kate Atkinson reflects on the last few months.


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