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| Harjot Atwal |
Further to my two preceding articles here and here, why do I find myself focusing on the negative interactions I have with a rare minority of clients (who likely use a disproportionate amount of my time) rather than focusing my mind on my many awesome and thankful clients? Why do I remember the good less often than the bad?
Maybe, rather than engaging in dark, sarcastic humour, I need to start keeping a journal of clients with whom I have had positive experiences and refer to it when I am annoyed. But that more positive coping mechanism is for another day. Today, I feel like venting. Why? Because sometimes it’s cathartic. It helps one to cope by trying to find the “funny” in a situation. So, I’ve come up with a few different categories of clients that amuse me, which I know will continue to recur. This is the last article in this series.
The client who has difficulty understanding but constantly makes this your fault
Another one of my fee-sensitive clients (you may be noticing a trend here based on my last two articles) has difficulty understanding concepts, even when you explain them repeatedly in slightly different ways over the phone, and calls you repeatedly to ask the same questions. When you get a bit frustrated after providing the same explanation a fourth or fifth time, and it comes through a bit in your voice, they immediately launch into some form of: “Well, it is your job to explain things to me and make sure I understand!” I’m literally explaining things as we speak. Then, this may be followed up with my client angrily remarking (despite being 14 minutes into the call at this point): “I am just asking for a bit of patience!”
Let me explain what was apparently so difficult to understand. The seller had not paid the amount of property taxes they claimed they did on the statement of adjustments. The seller gave the buyer a credit of $450 on the statement of adjustments, and I wrote an email stating that the claimed-as-paid amount ($800) plus reimbursement for late fees and penalties ($100) should lead to an additional total amount ($900) returned to buyer by the seller, the remaining $650 in property taxes were the responsibility of my new buyer client. “You become responsible for your own property taxes as of the closing day.”
I get people being mixed up by numbers temporarily. But I don’t get explaining something four or five times, particularly if you have written the clients an email about it and asked them to open it so they can see the calculations and explanations in writing too, which you then refer to specifically during the phone call.
Another common theme was this client also had their first mortgage cancelled. This was after having one of the longest client-signing sessions of my career. They asked me the same question time and time again when signing documents the first time and asked me to explain details to them to such a level of minutiae (which they promptly forgot, as demonstrated post-closing by having me explain again a few more times that title insurance will reimburse them for unpaid property taxes in such a situation) that it took over two hours to sign all of the documents the first time.
Then, they insisted on a discount from me during the signing meeting. After their mortgage got cancelled, and I had done all of the work of getting their file into solicitor-complete for the lender (and 90 per cent done my part overall except for disbursement of funds and registration), they then asked for a further discount on final closing. In their mind, despite me having done this extra work, they should have not to pay for that effort since the mortgage did not close. Is that my responsibility? No.
Moreover, on the final closing, after extending the transaction for over two months (and the multiple phone calls and explanations associated with that), they asked me to further reduce my fees to an amount lower than what they agreed to when I had just done work on one mortgage (and not two different ones with different lenders, which involved two separate signing meetings, preparing two different sets of documents, re-working numbers, cancelling and re-ordering title insurance, requesting funds from two different B-lenders who require a great deal more signed documentation than A-lenders, etc.).
I once heard an expression that there are three types of service from which to choose: cheap, fast or good. Now, pick two. So, if it’s cheap and fast, it’s not good. If it’s cheap and good, then it’s not fast. But I guess some people don’t just want all three. Instead, they also want the sun, the moon, the stars and everything else that comes underneath.
This is the third instalment of a three-part series. Part one: Time thieves: The clients you remember. Part two: Time thieves: The clients you remember, part two.
Harjot Atwal is a real estate lawyer. In 2023, he opened up his own shop, Atwal Law Firm. You can reach him via email at harjot@atwallawfirm.ca, by phone at 905-264-8926 or on LinkedIn.
The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the views of the author’s firm, its clients, Law360 Canada, LexisNexis Canada or any of its or their respective affiliates. This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal advice.
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