Good morning, I'm Andy Sanderson, this is Ruby and we're off to ask an expert. As you can see, the weather's engaged us, but we're off inside to go and see Andre Bride, and Alhuna Jones and Bright Solicitors. Come and rub, let's go in in the dry, in you go, out of here. Hello Andre, thanks very much for inviting us around this morning to answer a few questions to help people with their house buying and selling process. Now it's well known that you are the fastest solicitor in the whole of North Wales, having completed a marathon in under five hours last weekend. But tell me, can you help our customers who are buying and selling speed up their move? The first thing that most people ask is how long does the whole process take? Normally you're looking at six to eight weeks, you can do a quicker, it depends on mortgages, etc. But it's how much work you do at the start, really. When is the best time for somebody to instruct you as their solicitor if they're buying or selling a property? Well it goes back to what I was saying previously, really. The first thing you should be doing is instructing your solicitors really straight away. The earlier you can get those instructions to your solicitor, the better. The biggest issue we're finding particularly in Gwyneth is the searches, because they tend to take four to five weeks, so the earlier they can go off the better, so that really it's a case of getting in contact with your solicitor straight away. Also as well with your mortgage situation, those are the searches and mortgages of the two things that tend to take the longest to do. So if you go ahead and get your broker on board early, get your solicitor on board early, they can do the preparation work that's necessary to try and move it forward quicker. So these are things that you can do before you actually find a property or put property on the market? I think it's sensible, I think, before you even make the offer to, especially if you're getting a mortgage to have that in principle, if you're not getting a mortgage you want to do a survey, make contact with local surveyors, have one ready, then you can move it a lot quicker and it's that preparation work you do at the start that's key. We get a lot of people that aren't resident in the area at the moment. Can you tell me, is it essential that your clients actually have face-to-face meetings with you if they are buying and selling a property, or can you do a lot of it over the phone by post and using email now? Well, I think giving the way technology's moved on, particularly with the conveyance in market, it's not essential to be able to meet somebody face-to-face. It's obviously desirable if you want to because it's sometimes going to achieve more that way, but I would say most of the conveyance is done over the phone and email now. I mean, really, we as solicitors are not necessarily limited geographically just to this area. The speed in which you can get documents and have communication with people nowadays, particularly with us, and we're quite, we've moved with the times quite quickly. I mean, we, for example, offer a WhatsApp service to people, so they're getting regular updates on their phones. We can do out of hours called, so that, for example, if you have somebody's working all day and they can't necessarily speak between nine and five, we're available to speak later on in the evening. Things like that enable you to do that work without necessarily having that face-to-face call. So I think a lot of people have this conception you need the one-on-one meetings, but if you can fit them in fine, if you can't, then most of it you can do remotely. Do you think that as you're based locally here in North Wales, it's advantageous to use you if somebody's buying or selling a property in this area, or would they be just as easy to use a solicitor where they currently live? Personally, I think it has a massive advantage using a local solicitor. I know it might be slightly by its saying that, but there's an aspect, particularly around here, that you would need the local knowledge to be able to, to be able to do with, for example, Raid on Gas is a very common entry that we get when we do an environmental search. Raid on Gas is something that I'm naturally incurring gas, but it's found throughout Gwyneth, and it's not as problematic as it sounds. It's never really causing issue the entire time I've been doing conveyencing, but it's something that perhaps if you're employing a solicitor in London or in Birmingham, they wouldn't be familiar with because it's not local to them. And also, things like the lay of the land, for example, again, the planning situation, we have regular deans, just no alone in national park, and we're going to council. We know how they operate, we know their systems. That's quite advantageous, particularly if you get somebody who's perhaps wanting to develop a property in the future after buying. Andre, a lot of people ask me which solicitor should I use? Generally, I will give out maybe two or three names and phone numbers for people to ring around to choose for themselves. A lot of people just phone those three solicitors, and then they just go for the cheapest one, really. Can you tell me two or three good tips for how to choose a good solicitor? I think the biggest issue is that there's a conception that solicitors are often sort of a very closed profession. It's the first tip of transparency. You need somebody who's going to be effective at communicating with you. Communication is such a big issue with conveyance. You've spoken before about the speed of a conveyance, or the more communication you have with solicitor, the smoother it normally goes. Another issue is the speed in which that communication is going back and forward. Because a lot of people will complain about having difficulties with their solicitor, or their solicitor's not keeping them in the loop as to where they are in the transaction. We pride ourselves on being very open, very transparent. You've got to remember some of these people, particularly first-time buyers, have never done this before, or might not have moved home for 10 years. They don't know what some of the terminology is. They don't know what we're talking about in terms of the searches. We make it a point to try and explain each step. What's happening now? Why is happening? What's happening next? And the times get a little take. So that our clients remain clear as to exactly where they are in the conveyance. That cuts down on the amount of queries they have with us. And it makes matters a lot smoother because they can sometimes assist them in moving that forward. Ruby! I think the other misconception people have is they're a bit scared maybe to phone this list because of the cost situation. Most conveyances, if not all of them, are all done on a fixed fee basis now. Which means that I'm not encouraging people to phone the office 100 times. But it means that if you're phoning the office 10 times or 20 times, the fees tend to stay the same, unless there's a major infocusing problem that goes ahead. Often email communication is with the easiest way of moving matters forward. I think in terms of cost people will go for the cheapest, but the cheapest isn't necessarily the best. You've got to remember this is one of the most important things you're doing in your life. It's certainly the biggest thing you'll ever purchase in your entire life. And you want an expert and somebody knows what they're doing. And somebody you trust as well. And if you use one of these big conveyancing firms, for example, who you're just dealing with a call center every time you phone up, that's not necessarily going to be the best thing for you. You want somebody who's, you can communicate effectively with and also who's available for you. Yeah, and that's going to say it's important. I think it's nothing more frustrating than trying to phone up your solicitor to get something sorted out. And they're not in their office or there's nobody in the office available to help you. And you're left in the lurch for a day or two. Yeah, I mean, I'll give you an example. It's an expert job. If you're having surgery, would you want the best surgeon to do it or do you want the cheapest surgeon to do it? That's the way. Raise your answer. Okay, Andre, thanks very much for taking a few minutes and some time out to answer these questions. If anybody's got any further questions or anything, I'm sure that they'll be able to ring you. I'm happy to. Your office number here is... 01341-281-108. Or we have the towering office, which is just above me 01654-741-49.