Extra Sensory

There is a secret war going on in the streets of Scotland.

This isn't the obvious war, the one between the evil forces of roadworks and the evil forces of trying to get from a to b in a bus. This is a war for the hearts and minds of the Scottish people. A war that, perhaps can never be won. This is the secret war between estate agents and their mortal enemies - solicitors.

On the one hand, estate agents will sell your property for you. They'll do you a glossy brochure, and they will hire an attractive young philosophy post-grad to go and stand in it for a couple of hours on demand, louching against the split level grill and twiddling the knobs on the combi until the numbering wears off. You can have an interesting conversation with these people, like "the carpets aren't really my taste", or "how much do you think it's going to sell for" or "it's a bit handy for the knocking shop, isn't it?". On the other hand, they don't know who cleans the communal stairs or when the recycling day is or how long ago the roof was replaced. Estate agents are great if you're trying to sell a property that you don't live in, particularly if you live a long way away from it.

In the other corner, however, are the cut price cousins. Solicitors. Solicitors will tell you that you don't need an estate agent, because they are the spawn of the devil. They'll undercut their costs, and they won't send out a hot rugby player to stand in the property and do things with knobs like an estate agent will - you're expected to provide that service yourself. It changes the conversations you have. "Have you enjoyed living here?" or "What are the neighbours like" or "Is the knocking shop any good?". In general, they don't have anything like the numbers of staff behind them that the estate agents do, and they handle fewer properties.

However, solicitors have struck upon a genius plan, and seem to be winning the war at the moment. By joining forces, they present a united front - in Edinburgh this is called "ESPC", which stands for something. Like a cat, ESPC lets solicitors get their hackles up and look really big. They've got a shop and a website and a magazine and to be honest you could be forgiven for thinking that they're the only place to buy property from in Edinburgh.

But they're not.

And bizarrely, this makes estate agents the bloated underdogs, waddling slowly, lumbered with high costs and fees, and a lower visibility, fading into the shadow of solicitors with their fancy wigs and quills and stuff. I almost feel sorry for them.