Stereotypes!!!

We all live with stereotypes, but why do they persist.

It is as if a cartoonist were describing a profession. They are behavioural caricatures that highlight and exaggerate less favourable aspects.  The charitable side of me gives everyone the benefit of the doubt, but sometimes the stereotype triumphs.

The most obvious case in point recently has been the "bankers". There have been repeated revelations of greed-led behaviour and a sense of unearned superiority, with little or no sense of accountability. Of course the majority of people working in banks are upright, moral and hard working. It is the minority that feed the stereotype.

I have recently come across affirmation of two other stereotypes. The first relates to estate agents (realtors). In the UK at least the perception of their honesty is as low as their drive to close a deal is high.


We had a situation a number of years ago when after initially losing a house the estate agent returned to us, offering it at lower price. It appeared the previous buyer had pulled out. We were told that we did not need to meet the vendors again, instead we only needed to work with the estate agent and their solicitor. As we came to the point of contract exchange, when the transaction is locked in, the vendors announced that they were not and had never intended selling to us. The estate agent and solicitor had clearly lied and misled us.


I did look into suing, but was advised that the chance of success was very small.


I have now been lied to by another estate agent as I look to help my in-laws buy a property. We are trying to push the transaction through and was working with the agent to ensure the vendor was completing their parts promptly. Last week I went in to speak with him and was assured that the vendors was dealing with questions our solicitor had raised. This week I find that the vendor's solicitor had not even passed on the questions at that point and in fact only did so a week later, losing us a whole week. This was a clear lie to my face, designed to tell me what I hoped to hear and send me on my way. Meantime that agent went on holiday and has left the mess to a colleague.


The last stereotype I wanted to raise was that of solicitors. There is a view that one solicitor creates wok for another and are ponderous in how they execute a transaction. In this purchase we received a draft contract with a whole set of completed questionnaires from the vendor's solicitor. The practice then is for our solicitor to raise any further questions before finalising the contract.


In this instance our solicitor raised 35 questions. These look to be automatic questions as a number were repeats of points that had been fully answered in the draft contract - I doubt our solicitor had even looked at the draft contract before sending the questions. The trouble is that once raised they ave to answered .... again.


If these are automatic questions why not incorporate them in the standard initial questionnaires and make it simpler?


We have also seen a solicitor take almost two weeks to merely pass on the questions to their client. What was it doing for two weeks? Probably just sitting on a desk.


Again I am sure many solicitors and people working in estate agents are decent and honourable, but there are enough out there to feed the stereotypical perceptions and taint the rest. Such a shame.


Interestingly I did talk with the compliance department of the current estate agent as I would have thought dishonesty would be something they would be concerned about. Curiously the reaction was different. The compliance officer(?)'s response was that he was surprised that the estate agent was still involved, that once solicitors had been instructed the estate agent should have no further involvement. It was this continuing involvement he might reprimand them on, not dishonesty! What can I say?