This week (20th-24th March 2023) marks the first-ever National Conveyancing Week in the UK. With that, Bookers & Bolton are giving you an insight into a typical day for each of our conveyancing staff. 

As a full-time working mum, life can go by at 100 miles an hour; however, I have no complaints here as I love keeping all the plates spinning, and while it can be challenging, it certainly makes for an interesting day.   Working for Bookers & Bolton allows me to work flexible hours to suit my family’s needs with no questions asked; in fact, we are actively encouraged to have a great work-life balance, allowing me to care and provide for my children alongside working to suit my client’s needs.

What are the benefits of remote working?

As soon as I wake up, I do a quick check of my emails and calendar to ensure there is nothing pressing for the day, and then take my two children to school and nursery.

Once back home from the school run, I make sure all my downstairs blinds and doors are shut to stop the dog (we have a Newfoundland) from seeing any potential threats from coming into our close. The deadliest cat, delivery driver, or, god forbid, a leaf which could cause harm to his home is shut out from the world.

I then start work prioritising my clients moving that day or ready to exchange. Once all my completions have finished and I have dealt with my exchanges, I will then move on to the day-to-day tasks of chasing lenders for responses to various queries, assisting clients with their questions and working closely with the local agents and solicitors to get transactions through in a timely and stress-free manner and hashing awaited searches and checking various title deeds. The old ones are always the best!

Sometimes, whilst on the phone, you will hear my guard dog(!) who, despite not being able to see in the road, has heard a noise or who has managed to look through the blinds at a very big threat of someone walking across the neighbouring road! Occasionally I might have to rescue a control box or two one of my lovely children have left as fair game on the sofa, which the dog has decided would be a great snack. We have lost track of the snacks now, but thankfully he doesn’t like the batteries.

What do you enjoy most about your job?

After stopping for our usual hour’s lunch – we have a practice manager that is very insistent about breaks being good for mental and physical health – it is back to returning client calls and answering any emails before the children come home from school. Sometimes, we can send over 100 emails in one day, which makes for some sore fingers.  However, we do try to talk to clients directly as often as possible and are adaptable to each client’s individual needs. We have clients who prefer different methods of communication, including telephone, letters, emails, an app which keeps clients updated throughout the transaction in real-time or, lastly, face-to-face. As I live so close to the office, it is lovely to pop in and meet clients face-to-face. We can tailor our needs to you and offer you a bespoke service.

We also have an afternoon meeting three times a week with our conveyancing colleagues to ensure that we are all well and that everything is proceeding smoothly as we are a very close team and support each other when others are ill or on holiday etc.  Should we be tied up on the telephone, we are supported by our fantastic support staff, who we couldn’t do any work without. From our receptionist Debbie, Kate Healey, whose local knowledge is second to none and is here to assist and answer any questions you may have and our amazing accounts, to our support and managerial teams in the background who clients don’t often get to speak to but who help in keeping us running smoothly and efficiently.

What does a typical afternoon look like?

The afternoons can be our quietest time in respect of calls as all the completions have taken place. Usually, the exchanges, however, sometimes urgent matters do arise which we need to ensure are dealt with. Still, it is a good opportunity to do those jobs which need some concentration.  We also have allocated times in the week we refer to as ‘protected time’; this is a few hours each week we can dedicate to client files that need uninterrupted dedicated time to consider those complex transactions without the distraction of calls and emails etc.

I then end the day by ensuring all urgent work required for the next day is diarised and tasked, and all calls are returned where possible. The best part of my job is liaising with clients and making clients’ dream homes become a reality. No question is too silly, and we are always here to help or point you in the right direction.