Conveyancers have been praised for their ‘gargantuan effort’ in getting home purchases across the line before the latest stamp duty ‘holiday’ ended.
For the past few weeks practitioners have been under intense pressure to complete transactions ahead of stamp duty land tax thresholds changing today.
Camilla Greenwood, director of Knaresborough-based Greenwoods Solicitors, told her LinkedIn followers that she saw her team ‘turn themselves inside out’ for clients over the last few months, ‘working way over the expected number of hours each day, to get matters over the line in time’.
‘I’ve felt helpless as our wonderful conveyancers have carried the load of the SDLT deadline. I would never wish such a heavy workload on our team. You rose to the challenge, together as a well-oiled machine. You made it. My goodness I am in awe of you all,' Greenwood added.
Nabil Shah, head of conveyancing at Leadenhall Law Group, also took to LinkedIn to praise his team, who had worked ‘tirelessly’ over the past few months to get deals done ‘whilst doing their very best to maintain the highest standards of client care and diligence’.
Shah told the Gazette his firm’s efforts extended from the lawyers and paralegals to the firm’s finance teams and the firm had done more transactions in March than the last two months combined.
‘The human effort has involved the members of staff consistently putting in lengthy hours, working weekends, for what has been a sustained period of time but certainly intensified over the last week to ten days,’ Shah said.
‘The process involves corresponding to (almost on a daily basis) with the opposing solicitor (who themselves are likely under pressure), managing clients (many of whom need to complete otherwise affordability becomes a problem), managing estate agents, brokers and other third parties. When you consider the number of transactions, the complexities of transactions (conveyancing is often trivialised in the public), it truly is a gargantuan effort.’
Shah said many conveyancers quit the sector after the last stamp duty ‘holiday’ – during Covid – ended, creating a ‘talent and experience vacuum’ that law firms have struggled to fill. ‘Hopefully, this latest SDLT travail won’t have the same effect,’ Shah said.
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