Well you know they've only a gas mantle in the back

Once there was a Prime Minister called Margaret Thatcher, who by way of a piece of legislation, sold a council flat to a grateful, hard working couple called Mr & Mrs Vendor. Mr & Mrs Vendor, being capitalists and having purchased this flat for next to nothing, seized upon the opportunity of renting it out and making an income whilst they languished in the luxury of another place they bought in leafy Streatham. Soon though they thought it might be nice to kiss the flat goodbye and turn it into cold hard cash. They wished that like the princess and the frog, they had magic to perform this transformation, but in its absence turned to estate agents and conveyancing solicitors. The estate agent was handsome and efficient and soon found a buyer, eager to move in. Once a price had been agreed the matter was passed to the solicitors.

This was where trouble began. For whilst the buyer’s solicitor was good and kind, the other solicitor was fat and lazy and ate donuts. This bad solicitor worked in a dark office in deepest Norbury and although he called himself a conveyancing solicitor, he actually spent most of his time watching re-runs of Holiday Showdown on ITV2. He sat on his fat @rse for a number of months letting the file of a certain ex-council flat gather dust and crumbs from his donuts.

One day he was requested by his clients who were wondering what he was up to all these months, to complete the ex-council flat transaction as soon as possible, as, being capitalists, they’d quite like to receive the money for it. They no longer had a tenant in the flat and it was beginning to cost them serious money for the first time ever. Without looking up from The Best of Most Haunted, he passed on this request for an early completion to the good solicitor who worked hard in a bright office in Brixton.

The good solicitor said ‘ok, that would be lovely, I have been trying to get hold of you to exact this very thing for the last three months, but I have only been able to get your assistant. I am glad we are getting the ball rolling at last. Have you got the basic information that we’ve been asking for all this time, so that we can do as your client would like and put this transaction through quickly? Our client is also eager to move in.’

‘No!’ said the bad solicitor, ‘I’ve been busy scratching my balls whilst watching Jane McDonald on Loose Women, so I haven’t had time. Oh, and I’m going on holiday now so my friend Dave the stand-in will have to help you, bye!’

The good solicitor then tried to contact Dave the stand-in, who looked at the bad solicitors files and said, ‘Off the record mate, I shouldn’t tell you this, but my colleague, the bad solicitor, should have asked for all this information months ago. It’s quite basic.’

‘Tell me something I don’t know!’ said the good solicitor. ‘My client will not be happy. Do you even have a copy of the lease to show me? You know, the fundamental document that proves ownership of the flat?’

‘The file doesn’t say that’ said the bad solicitor. ‘We might have, but then again, our clients might have it at home, or we might not have one at all. I really couldn’t say.’

‘Look, Dave the stand-in’ said the good solicitor, ‘you’ve really got to get this to us if we are going to be asking the big bank based in Yorkshire and Scotland for one-hundred-and-thirty-and-a-half-thousand pounds on Friday. They really won’t like giving it out to me to buy a flat that might technically not exist or not be in the correct possession of Mr & Mrs Vendor. They’re quite funny like that.’

‘I’ll have a look in a cupboard and write to you in a few days’, said Dave the stand-in.

The poor good solicitor turned to his angry client and told him of what Dave the stand-in had said, off the record, and the client was furious. He immediately went back to the handsome Estate Agent and asked him to call Mr & Mrs Vendor and tell them how poor their solicitors had been and ask them whether they do indeed have a copy of their lease. Obligingly, and because he was eager to get his commission from the sale, the handsome estate agent contacted Mr & Mrs Vendor and asked.

What do you think, Mr & Mrs Vendor will say, children? Will they be able to get sight of the Lease to the good solicitors in time for the end of the week, or will dark forces continue to rule over the land of South London, forcing ever more delays and frustrations into the paths of the good people?

Tune in soon for another instalment of, The Bad Solicitors of London Town.