Sale agreed, memo not sent
The vendor accepted on Tuesday. Everyone is pleased. By Friday the memorandum of sale still has not gone, because the buyer's solicitor details are missing, the vendor has not confirmed who they are using, and the negotiator who agreed the sale is on a day off. When it does go, the buyer's middle name is spelt wrong, the fixtures included in the price are not mentioned, and one solicitor was left off the email.
The solicitors start their work a week later than they could have, and one of them starts by asking the progressor to correct the memo.
Why the memo is fiddly
The memo pulls together facts that arrive at different times from different people: names exactly as they appear on ID, addresses, both solicitors, the broker, the agreed price, anything included or excluded, special conditions, chain details and target dates. Many branches build it in a word processor template, copying and pasting from the CRM and emails.
Copying by hand is where the errors come in, and waiting for the last missing detail is where the delay comes from.
| Memo detail | Common problem |
|---|---|
| Party names | Spelling, missing joint party |
| Solicitor contacts | Not yet chosen, or out-of-date details |
| Price and inclusions | Items agreed on the phone never written down |
| Chain information | Blank because nobody asked |
| Distribution | One party left off the email |
What a late or wrong memo costs
The memo is what starts the legal work. Every day it is late is a day lost at the start of the transaction, and wrong details mean corrections and a poor first impression with the solicitors you will be chasing for weeks. Unrecorded agreements about fixtures or dates are a common source of arguments near exchange, when nobody can remember what was said.
A memo generated from confirmed facts
- Sale record first: when a sale is agreed, the negotiator completes a short sale-agreed form on their phone while details are fresh: price, inclusions, conditions, dates discussed.
- Gathering the rest: vendor and buyer each get a link to confirm their names, addresses and solicitor choice, with solicitor contacts looked up from your existing records where you have dealt with them before.
- Readiness checklist: the memo cannot be sent until the required items are confirmed. Missing items are shown with who needs to provide them, and reminders go out.
- Generation: the memo is produced from the confirmed record in your branch's layout, so nothing is retyped.
- Sending and logging: it goes to every party on the list, and the send is recorded against the sale in the CRM along with the PDF.
- Changes: if something changes later, such as a price renegotiation, a revised memo is produced from the updated record and the change is logged.
What your progressor inherits
A clean file from day one: correct names, both solicitors, the broker, the chain and a record of what was agreed. The memo goes as soon as the last detail is confirmed, not when someone finds a free hour. Later disputes about what was included can be answered from the record.
The negotiator who agreed the sale no longer has to be in the office for the memo to go. Because the facts were captured on the day, anyone in the branch can see what is still missing and who is holding it up. The branch manager can also see, across all new sales, how long memos are taking to go out and which step usually causes the wait, which is often a single party that could be asked sooner.
Is your memo process like this?
- Memos are built by copying details from the CRM and emails into a template.
- Solicitors regularly ask for corrections to the memo.
- The memo waits for the negotiator who agreed the sale.
- Agreements about inclusions or dates exist only in someone's memory.