The Apprentice Teaches the Master

A first-time buyer sits across from an agent and asks a simple question: why does the seller get to choose the conveyancer when the buyer is the one paying the transfer costs?

It is a fair question, and the honest answer is mostly custom. The seller usually appoints the transferring conveyancer, often on the agent's suggestion, while the buyer pays the transfer costs and any transfer duty. The bank, meanwhile, appoints its own attorney to register the bond. An agent who has worked this way for years may never have stopped to explain it, because it is simply how things are done.

Beginner questions are useful for exactly that reason. They force the expert to put a habit into plain words, and some habits hold up while others do not. Explaining why occupation can happen before transfer, or why a buyer living in the house before registration pays occupational rent, sort of shows an agent which parts of the process have a clear reason behind them and which were copied from the last contract.

Experienced people tend to think they are teaching when a beginner asks. Quite often they are being audited, gently, by someone who has not yet learned which questions are supposed to be silly.