Wishing you and your loved ones a safe and relaxing holiday season. The InfoTrack team will be taking a break from 5pm AEDT Friday 20th December 2024, returning 8.30am Monday 13th January 2025. A few members of our HelpDesk team will be on hand to assist with enquiries from 8am-6pm AEDT, Monday to Friday, on 1800 738 524. We appreciate your patience during this time. Happy holidays!

Sharmaine Gormley
October 12, 2023

Maintaining community connections in the digital world

The move and transition to the Central Coast has been taking place over the last 15 years with the working couple, young family, and empty nesters heading to the Central Coast from the outskirts of Sydney and the inner suburbs for a more easy-going life, more laid-back lifestyle and the convenience of being only an hour and a bit from the major trends and international airport.

You can have the best of both worlds on the central coast with the gorgeous coastline and swimming beaches to the east, the lakes parting the coast in the middle and the gorgeous terrains of the mountains to the west all giving you the option to have a couple of acres with chooks and your own vegetable garden whilst being 10-15 minutes to the beach or lake for fishing and loading the boat in. What could be more attractive on top of a cheaper price basis and the 3-bedroom home with an ensuite under 750k?

Modernising practices whilst maintaining connections

As a legal representative in the local area where I have been working since 2001 we have noticed the changes in the way practices are completed from the paper phase and fax ordering systems, paying by cheque to the modern way of DocuSign. All your paperwork and identifying your client online sometimes never even speaking and corresponding by email (sometimes this can be a worry and we always make sure we speak at least twice to know who is who in the zoo).

It’s important for all people involved in the transaction to be onboard and its important to have the essential connections that the coast has to offer to ensure a smooth ride for your client. A good agent that is knowledgeable and well versed in rural or the area is a must! There is no over promising or under delivering and we work with some of the best on the coast in my opinion. The lenders being local and understanding our clients’ needs and their age is another major factor. Knowing what’s going to suit. We had a 92-year-old lady recently buying a 6-bedroom, 2 storey house because her son wanted her to have it. Not at all practical for a woman that can’t moves far with her walker and wouldn’t be able to get to the mailbox without calling in the troops to get her back up the stairs. Without these people involved, your lender is giving money to the wrong areas, an agent is selling a house for the sake of a deal and the son has scored himself a house when she passes but poor old Enid hasn’t got any quality of life and a comfortable home where she could talk to people her own age or water the garden without employing the local landscaping company. Morality is a trait we like to practice in, sometimes it can lose us business, but it won’t sell our soul and make us a bad person to the general community in the larger scheme of things.

Evolving expectations for conveyancers

Conveyancing is harder, the people and expectations are looming to be near impossible with most wanting you to do it all for them without providing good instructions and then want the ‘I didn’t know’, and ‘I haven’t done this before or for a long time’ excuse.

We work on a smooth transition in our practice talking to the client, obtaining their instructions, seeing what their plans are and after this long being around being able to pick up what the expectations and lay them out to move ahead to make a great experience for the client and the team having to work with them at an affordable price.

Costing it is the hard part when you have someone working from their kitchen table up the road or the fancy office with all pretty signs and a coffee machine for clients to gauge where you put your fee and where you sit. With good market research, competition research and services you can only worry about what works for your business and what you do well at, and we try to do it well, at a good price.

Products go along way with cost of services, and you will never keep everyone happy, but I think it all comes down to reliability, good knowledge of your field and area and doing the right thing. At the end of the day, you are only as good as your last matter!

Link Legal & Conveyancing pride themselves on delivering exceptional outcomes for all clients. Find out more about the services they offer to their local community.