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Deeds Review

Deeds Review

Author: Mireille Barnard
Date: 2022-11-25
Twenty-two years ago, on my twelfth birthday my father took a chance and started his firm, Christo Barnard Attorneys in a flatlet attached to our house. Umtata had very few firms at that stage and he disliked the way clients were treated as transactions and not as people. So, he started his firm and made sure to provide excellent service and institute an open-door policy, not only for his staff but his clients.

Through the years, I watched with pride as my father's business grew, first into its own premises, then to new branches. He never advertised, instead he relied on his friendly and accessible service thus building a business on word of mouth. People in the in Eastern Cape knew who he was and that he would listen. I worked for him on and off through the years until I joined the firm full time in 2017. The greatest lesson in business that I have learnt from him was to listen- because everyone has a story. I have seen this time and time again, how clients that you perceive as "difficult" are actually just under an enormous amount of stress. Our firm specialises in Conveyancing and what I am often reminded of is that we do not merely transfer property – we transfer homes. People grow very attached to their homes, they fall in love in them, they raise their children in them, they fill them with highly personal and intimate memories and those memories need to be honoured in the transfer process. Conversely, people buying homes are investing a significant amount of their financial resources and this often comes with a large amount of fear. Very often people do not understand why they are paying conveyancing fees or what a conveyancer actually does, they only know its unavoidable.

We strive to simplify the conveyancing process so that all our clients know what the process is and where in the process their transfer is. Our residential and commercial developers are no more important to us then our once off clients because we know we are dealing with people during a highly stressful time. As a way to try and mitigate this stress in Ballito we have joined with Secret Sunrise to help bring them to our beautiful Dolphin Coast. On the 26th November, 140 people will gather on Salt Rock beach with wireless headphones and welcome the day with dance, who knows it might even end with a dip in the ocean. So, breathe out Ballito, and dance your stress away.