To date, my posts here have typically addressed the burning, yet very trivial aspects of everyday life. Things that, whilst irritating, provide the lows that help contextualise all that is awesome about bothering to get out of bed1.
1 month and 10 days after the collapse of my house move, I feel like I am now able to rationally and philosophically look at what happened and recount the cataclysmic confluence of endless ineptitude that has characterised my experience of supposedly “professional” individuals so far in 2011.
It all started with Davina McCall. One cold December Friday I had managed to secure “reserve” tickets for the Million Pound Drop live on TV from the Applause Store. Having trekked all the way to the delightful area of Bromley-by-Bow we ended up as the first people on the wrong side of the “sorry we’re full” line. Cold, wet and dejected, we made our way home to watch it on TV instead. My lovely girlfriend (yep, so long ago it was pre-fianceé days) started browsing housing websites and we found a big new development out in North West London.
We visited the development the next day – no show home, just blueprints at that stage. It looked perfect: open plan kitchen and living room, space for my dream of a dedicated “cinema room” on the ground floor, garden, garage, enough bedrooms for the children that I don’t expect or plan to have for a long while yet and to finish it all off they would take our flat in part exchange. We waited until after Christmas when the show home had been built – but we knew from that Saturday that we’d go for it. In January we reserved with the developers (incompetent party #1), instructed the solicitors they pressured us to use (incompetent party #2) and the process began. Initially the solicitors struggled to get in contact with our freeholder (incompetent party #3) but eventually contact was made.
All seemed to be progressing well – we designed our kitchen, bathrooms (4 bathrooms for 2 people, in hindsight, was probably superfluous) garden and all important power, TV, telephone and Sky sockets – paying the requisite deposits as we went. We read the replies to the developer’s enquiries from the freeholder’s solicitor (member of party #3) and were slightly shocked at how rude, unprofessional, slapdash and poorly written these were. Even more shocking was the fact this poor excuse for a document carried a £250 fee that we were expected to pay. A letter from the developer (unsurprisingly) followed shortly expressing concerns with the incompleteness of the answers and we assumed that all parties would act practically and quickly to get around what seemed a simple hiccup in the process. At no point were we given reason to think otherwise.
Our assumption was given further weight when we were given contracts to sign (although these were never ‘exchanged’) and were informed by the developers that the moving date would be confirmed within the week. This was the start of July, a full half year after the process began.
The day we were due to find out our completion date we got a call from the sales team – “we have a serious problem with your freeholder”. Like a fat Scottish chancellor’s reaction to an exponentially expanding budget deficit coupled with politically fuelled expansive fiscal policy during a pre-recessionary boom period, the inept parties had chosen to ignore the “hiccup” until it became an almighty “f-up”. We would not be completing until this issue (highlighted a number of months before and left unattended) had been resolved.
“Fear not though”, we were told by the valiant Three Tard-keteers, this can be easily rectified if the developer (#1) tells the solicitors (#2) to tell the freeholder (#3) what is required and simple actions are taken to resolve the situation. In a thoroughly unsurprising moment – when their powers were combined all that materialised was Captain Jack-Shit2.
Despite my attempts to call, shout at, push and pull to remove the inertia, not enough progress was being made so the “big boss” of the developer jumps in. This is a man so revered and feared by the sales team that his first name was taboo. He was referred to simply as “Mr. [REDACTED]”.
Annoyingly, this initially stopped me guessing his email address but that was nothing Google couldn’t fix. In fact his name was Tim. Little Timmy (as you will see from the molto forte crescendo of my final rant) remains the main object of my diatribe due to epitomising a spectacular expertise across the entire scope of the “Trifecta of Tard-domTM”.
Little Timmy waded in and pulled the plug – the move was over. We were devastated.
Now that time has allowed me to traverse the stages of denial, self-pity, rage and acceptance, I find myself experiencing a couple of feelings I was not expecting – relief and embarrassment.
Embarrassment in that my inability to purchase a 4-bedroom family home at the grand old age of 27 was one of the more notable setbacks I have experienced since getting an “A” in my French GCSE. This hardly qualifies me to sup bourbon whilst delivering a heartfelt blues performance to a bar full of unemployed divorcees. What am I whining about? I’ve got it (and always had it) pretty damn good.
The relief comes from the fact that I have since realised I am not quite ready for middle-aged life in suburbia, nor the penny pinching frugality that would come with the Godzilla of mortgages that I narrowly avoided, nor the potential for the sub-standard soundproofing of modern terraced houses to leave me exposed to the nightly mating rituals of hideously overweight neighbours.
Notwithstanding the silver lining and my over privileged melodrama, having had chance to undertake a deeper analysis of the series of events that led to the collapse, the professional disdain for competence displayed by the trio of parties3 in a trifecta of ways is undeniable and still gets my goat whenever I think about it.
I know, I know, you’re thinking:
“OK, I get the ‘trio’ – freeholder, lawyers, developer – but now you’re going on about a ‘trifecta’ – what the deuce do you mean by that?”
Funny you should say that – let me introduce to you the “Trifecta of Tard-domTM”:
Actually, before you do – this is already my longest post. It is no doubt tedious and self-indulgent and I’m not even getting started yet. If you would like to take a break, now would be a good time – here is a picture of a cute puppy to entertain you during this break.
Now on with the trifecta…
Practical Incompetence – The ability to get eternally submerged by process, theory, a lack of intellect or general lethargy and effectively avoid any remote possibility of getting something valuable done. Please Google “Government”, “Corporate Risk Management” or “Arsene Wenger’s transfer policy” for relevant examples
Emotional Incompetence – The uncanny ability to misread the emotional state of people and either deliver discourse or undertake work in a way that is in direct conflict with the basic social etiquette understood through instinct by all except the most gifted of sociopaths. Examples can be found through searching for “Reacting to the mass exodus of client facing staff from a Strategy Consultancy by ignoring all concerns raised4 and delivering a charisma-absent speech about the 10 year vision for the team” or “Piers Morgan”
Logical Incompetence – As someone who is both employed and naturally inclined to look at every situation through a logical lens (much to the irritation and, no doubt, tedium of others), this one really pilfers my porcupine5. Defined here as simply “the inability to think through the logical consequences of an action or sequence of events”, examples can again be found through searching for "Oregon's Exploding Whale" or "The Chewbacca Defense".
If Practical incompetence were a perfume it would be “Eau de freeholder”; if it were a meal it would be “Beef and freeholder stroganoff”; if it were a football team, well, you get the picture. Very few people have the capability to covertly buy the freehold to a block of 3 flats with a ground floor commercial unit, acquire planning permission to turn the commercial unit into a restaurant without informing the residents, violate planning permission on as many occasions as humanly possible during the construction of the restaurant and then subsequently run the restaurant into the ground. Twice. Within six months.
Our freeholder managed this (possibly the only thing he has ever bothered to manage). What’s more, at the same time this individual managed not only to remain incommunicado but also managed to fulfil none of his responsibilities outlined in the lease. Upon attempting to move it took this gentleman three months to suggest that his ready appointed solicitor perhaps get in contact with my lawyers. Whilst the unprofessional conduct of his appointed solicitor certainly carried an air of practical incompetence, he definitely majored in emotional incompetence so before I talk about him anymore, I will devote a few words to my beloved solicitors.
To me, nothing says…
“Daddy wanted me to get a real job but the fact I possess all the drive and mental agility of a Big Brother evictee meant that the intellect, moral compass, professional standards and capacity for empathetic human interaction required for a career with Injury Lawyers 4U was too much of a stretch for my genetic endowment”
…quite like becoming a conveyancing solicitor.
Even so, when you’re job requires the management of a process, often to a tight and changing deadline, you would expect some level of competence from people that are supposedly acting on your behalf. In a time pressured environment, identifying bottlenecks and acting to release them should come as second nature to even the lowliest and least capable of project managers.
When the absence of sufficient information from a freeholder is bluntly identified as a potential sticking point in a process, surely a daily email or phone call politely reminding the freeholder of their legal obligations to facilitate this process would be appropriate? 3 weeks of burying ones head in the sand, on the other hand, is hardly “acting in my interests”. The fact that the developer’s legal team also did no chasing is testament to a Practical incompetence inherent in the profession in general rather than solely bestowed upon my legal team. Further, the clients of conveyancers (i.e. me) are unlikely to provide regular repeat business (whereas the developers that enforce their use are). Couple this with the fact that their fees are largely contingent on time spent rather than success and you have a collection of professionals with absolutely no incentive to be anything other than useless.
Whilst the practical incompetence of conveyancers may be a simple fact of life, here I have a prime example of legal support that is effortlessly able to combine this practical incompetence with a healthy dose of Emotional incompetence.
People have egos. People stuck in the unloved depths of a legal department of a corporate behemoth subject to endless conveyancing and seen as the treacle that stops sales going ahead are likely to have low self esteem and thus be protective of their egos (hello developer legal team!). Similarly, people who have recently bankrupted their own law firm, resulting in the suspension of their license to practice law and subsequently having to take an un-named role at a no-name solicitor firm whilst trying to re-establish contact with the most naïve of their former clients that would at least consider using a barge pole to make personal contact are also likely to have low self esteem and thus be protective of their ego (hello Freeholder’s solicitor!).
Based on the above I have prepared some “top tips” on how aspiring conveyancers should attempt to travel the road towards Emotional competence:
Top tip one, if you are the illiterate underling of an already incompetent “lead name” conveyancer acting for me, do not forward the unprofessional and rude replies to initial lease enquiries penned by the Freeholder’ life-frustrated solicitor to the Developer without attaching the questions that were asked.
Top tip two, when you receive a pompous letter from a posturing developer’s counsel highlighting the poor quality of responses and questioning the capability of the freeholder’s legal team, do not forward the unedited letter directly to the previously disbarred bankruptee.
Top tip three, when said bankruptee replies that the letter from the developer is “hysterical” and “unfounded”, do not forward this unedited to the frustrated corporate slave in the developer’s legal department.
If you think “oops” when you read any of these tips then you are officially Emotionally incompetent. If you think “oops” to all three, then you can be safe in the knowledge that you are not on my Christmas card list.
As I progress in my career I have the aspirations of achieving a pretty senior position within a business – ideally a CEO, happy with a place on the board of directors. Getting there will require me to jump through a load of hoops and take on a number of other jobs. These may include non-board director ships, regional roles, down and dirty operational roles or all manner of things I have not thought of.
In all my experience of senior teams in business, both in my current role and through consulting, I have generally been impressed with the logical thought processes exhibited by these people and their general professionalism and competence. Unfortunately, little Timmy was an exception to this rule and a master in the art of Logical incompetence.
As a regional director responsible for sales, you are responsible (and incentivised) to maximise both revenue and profit for your division. Prior to cancelling our move, Timmy was in an excellent position to do just that:
- Because we were taking part in a part exchange with our flat, the full asking price for the house was to be paid – a rarity in current economic conditions
- The part-exchange offer for our flat was slightly below market rate and during the process the ground floor commercial unit changed from an unoccupied restaurant to a bookmakers, thus increasing the property value
- The house, during the build, was tailored to our specification. It was not only tailored to our tastes (which in hindsight, sadly did not include polka dot carpets or a pink kitchen) but we would have paid significant sums for the privilege, at a huge mark-up for the developer
In summary, cha-ching. Thus, if you believe there may be some uncertainty with the freehold management of the property, the rational thing to do is to seek further information or take steps to reduce this risk, or at least reduce the information asymmetry in understanding whether there is a risk of reselling the flat at all. A logical person would have taken one or more of the following options:
- Seek advice from a lawyer who is legally competent in the practicalities of freehold law in London (i.e. not the paper monkeys internally)
- Instruct your minions to work to rectify the situation
- Work out that if the risk of a problem with resale is, say 10%, that 90% of the value you would receive from this transaction is still well above what you would receive from attempting to resell the house (after adjusting for delays, people paying less than asking price, people not paying for optional extras, you not receiving more than you paid for our flat)
- Following this, think of something to make it work
Sadly, Timmy is not rational. Non-rational decisions such as Timmy’s have led to the share price of his company plummeting to 7% of the value that it was in 2007. OK, the minor economic slowdown may be in part to blame but if you look at six of Timmy’s competitors over the same period, whilst his stock options have fallen by 93%, his competitors have only been hit by 68%. It is the lack of competence of senior figures like Timmy that leads your £10,000 of accumulated stock to be worth £700 (£9,300 of value destruction) rather than nearly 5 times as much.
Obviously, both Timmy and Timmy’s boss have received strongly worded letters pointing out his and his team’s incompetency. I can only hope they read them and that their egos are sufficiently in check for some of the messages to sink in. I have come to learn from this process that incompetence is contagious – especially within large organisations – and I can only hope that self-awareness can start to cure this so that other people are not subjected to the same stresses that I have been.
Writing this has been liberating. This is partly that in venting the frustrations that have built up over the last 8 months I have limited the possibility of a “rage explosion” in the near future. Also, and maybe more importantly, it has shown me that you do not need to be superhuman or super competent to find yourself in a position of power and influence. There may be hope for me yet.
Maybe one day I will anonymously link parties 1, 2 and 3 to this blog, thus congratulating them on achieving mediocrity despite their genetic shortcomings. Maybe Timmy will read it and develop the self awareness to work on his many flaws. Maybe I will send it to them, maybe I’m just too lazy.
1 Or all that is awesome about staying in bed recovering from dancing like a maniac to a live Pendulum DJ set until 5am
2 Yes, I know, that is a terrible and vague Captain Planet reference. I apologise
3 Technically there are well in excess of 3 parties who displayed ineptitude (2 of my lawyers, 1 freeholder, his lawyer and somewhere between 5 and 10 employees of a the large national housing developer) but they can be grouped into 3. And GCSE English told me stuff has more impact in threes
4 Initially – followed by a sudden u-turn sparked by the threatened resignation of the majority of the senior team…
5 I realised I really like the phrase “gets my goat” but I was unwilling to use the same expression twice in the same post. Incidentally the origins of this expression are largely unknown – with hypotheses ranging from “goat” being a misspelled “goad” to a direct French translation of “prendre la chevre” to the malicious practice of stealing the “pet goat” of a race horse immediately before a race (in the 1700s, goats were apparently used as companion animals to help settle race horses prior to major events)
