Tea in Stoke on Trent

I really don’t like lawyers. This stems from a number of causes but I will cite one that I find irksome before I go on to discuss the main topic. In the coin trade, you usually run into lawyers when they are getting valuations for probate. At hat point they want you to use your years of experience to put a value on things for them. They will be charging their client approximately £200 an hour for doing this and they want to pay us nothing. I have said many times that we should either charge or refuse top do the work but the owner always takes the view we might be able to buy the stuff later. However, we could probably still do that, and don’t need to sell ourselves cheap.

My solicitor, passed on by my sister, is charging me over £1,000 to do the conveyancing. I know someone who did conveyancing for a solicitor when he was a 16-year-old school leaver. It’s not difficult, but the mystique that surrounds the legal profession means we gladly pay them huge amounts of money for simple jobs, then thank them for making our eyes water with their scale of fees. When looking up average fees I find they suggest my job should cost £400-800. Someone else is advertising low cost conveyancing for £199. That will really be about £249 as they are probably quoting without the VAT.

Mooring ring

I note from the email sent to me today that the solicitor I thought was my solicitor is being supervised by someone else, but has, in any case, just passed me on to a new member of staff , who only works part time. They may not even be a solicitor. This feels a little like going into an operating theatre and watching one of the catering staff sharpen a big knife while reading “Brain Surgery for Dummies“.

Anyway, today we had the big identity kerfuffle. Having already provided six months bank statements and answered a number of intrusive questions about my finances, then filled in a form to say I was not corrupt and various other bits and pieces, I now have to prove I am who I say I am. Bear in mind I’m buying half a house off my sister. We were executors (for which we had to prove our identity) and we were residuary legatees, for which we had to prove our identities. This was all with the same solicitor so they know who I am, but they still (they claim) need to charge me for checking again.

A Pensioner

And that was how I had the novel experience of downloading an “app”. They all the rage these days, though they are anathema to a man like me who believes that the easiest way of avoiding internet fraud is to avoid doing financial and identity related things on the internet. However, we are anxious to get the sale completed so I went ahead with it.

If you leave out the discussion of why I have to prove my identity again, why I’m not allowed to spend my own money without restriction (remember that it has all gone through a bank account where I had to go through all this nonsense just to be able to give a bank my money to look after), the system was still ludicrous – three examples – it couldn’t “see” my driving license photo, it offered a bank statement as an example of acceptable documentation (but didn’t have it as a category later in the process) and some of the drop-down menus obscured things I needed to see. To make it worse, it also manages to adopt a patronising tone, and I don’t believe that these measures would defeat anyone but the stupidest of criminals. I could very easily have two bank accounts and, by just using one, pass all their tests. I could also run a nail bar or barber’s shop, as these are both popular ways to launder money, I’m told.

Vine Leaves in October

As usual, criminals prosper and honest citizens are made to suffer. A bit like Government Tax Policy – multi-nationals escape paying taxes, rich people employ expensive lawyers to avoid tax, politicians take gifts with an embarrassing lack of dignity. Meanwhile, pensioners have had their winter fuel allowance scrapped, which is actually more cunning than it sounds. Cut the heating, kill the pensioner. That way you save on paying pensions and financing care for the elderly too.

Photos for today are just pot luck – I was going to search for pictures of leeches, vampires an grave robbers but in the end I have done 750 words and I need to get on.

Whitby graveyard OK, it’s a vampire reference – I couldn’t resist.