Verification Reveals Character

How a person handles checking, when nobody would know if they skipped it, says more about them than anything on a CV. In property that habit has a direct rand value.

Take a well-known fraud in property transfers. A buyer receives an email that looks exactly like it came from the conveyancer, with new banking details for the deposit. The logo is right and the reference matches. The buyer who phones the attorneys on a number he already had, before paying anything, keeps his deposit. The one who trusts the email may never see that money again. The only difference between them is the habit of checking.

The same is true on the other side of the deal. An agent who confirms that a cash buyer's money is real, through a bank guarantee or proof of funds rather than a confident handshake, saves a seller from taking a house off the market for someone who never had the money. A conveyancer who reads every FICA document properly is doing the same work, just less visibly.

People who verify when it is optional usually do it because they have pictured what happens when nobody does. That habit of imagination is a kind of character, and it shows most clearly on the days when everything looks fine.