Continued home working presents potential challenges for the property market

Indeed, given the PM’s own view that a second wave of Covid-19 could already be spied in Europe, then it’s not really surprising that both employers and their employees are exercising a large degree of caution on this matter.

A recent poll from Theta Financial Reporting revealed that 26% of financial services employees would not be returning to the office in August, while a further 17% said they wouldn’t be working out of an employer’s permanent office when they do return to work.

If anything, those numbers still feel like an under-estimation of this ongoing situation – especially when it comes to large-scale employers in our sectors such as the big lenders and providers, plus the large specialist conveyancers in our space.

There will, of course, be exceptions, but our own experience is that the vast majority of these businesses still have the vast majority of staff if not working from home, then certainly working remotely. Take Barclays as an example, who recently revealed that 60,000 staff are working from home, with only 20,000 in offices, branches and call centres.

I can’t imagine that other, larger scale, financial services businesses would be operating any differently, which clearly presents potential challenges for all property market practitioners, especially as we seek to make the most of the stamp duty holiday.

A quick chat with any adviser is likely to illicit stories of, shall we say, ongoing communication difficulties particularly with some bigger lenders who operate in more mainstream marketplaces.

Let’s be honest, despite the technology being in place to facilitate ‘working from home’, I suspect the ‘normal’ way of working from an office is difficult to replicate, especially when it comes to call centres or any sort of customer service operation. Not having all departments under one roof can also mean an increase in waiting times in order to get answers to the questions that will allow cases to complete.

What we have however seen, particularly in the conveyancing space – and specifically the firms we work with - is an ability to get over those initial teething problems and get as close to a normal service provision as possible. Bringing people back within the office environment is a medium- to long-term goal of all those firms but I think there is also a recognition that safety absolutely comes first, and to get to that point might take some time.

For advisers seeking to carry out the day job, get mortgages agreed and eventually completed, one can understand the frustration that they may be going through, especially if you have public protestations that service levels have not dipped one iota.

But it seems we will all have to live with this mode of operating probably throughout the rest of 2020 and potentially into next year. I know there are financial services firms who have no plans to change their current arrangements at all this year, and while this doesn’t necessarily mean delays, they should be anticipated and taken into account when processing work and (rather importantly) when managing the client’s expectations.

Within this environment, the need to ensure all possible advice needs are covered by the adviser, becomes even more important. If you are simply waiting for the mortgage to be completed in order to get paid, then you may find the wait becomes that much more uncomfortable than if you were also covering off the client’s protection/GI/conveyancing/legal needs as well. Those payments can be much more regular than a one-off mortgage transaction, and it will be obvious to most firms that the more services/products on offer, the more likely you will come out of this period in a positive manner.

Working practices have changed beyond all recognition for many firms, but this is the ‘new normal’ for some time – working with clients to help them understand how this might shift timeframes, and making sure all advice bases are covered, should hopefully mean that advisers are only out of their main offices and not out of business altogether.