u/aspghost

I recently tried to employ a conveyancing solicitor, standard protocol they need to see ID and run it through an authenticator to make sure you are who you say you are. In this case they used an ID authenticator from 'Legl'.

Legl has an in-browser thing that accesses your phone's camera and takes a photo of your ID, I used that to upload an image of my passport as directed. It failed. And again. I spoke to the solicitor, offered to show them my physical passports, they told me to keep trying the system. I did. Even tried with my other, dual-nationality passport. Same result. Eventually it locked me out, and I received this message from the solicitor:

>Owing to the search company’s confirmation that they consider your ID has been digitally tampered with – on both passports the ... Compliance Department has said that I must decline your instructions.

My phone is almost ten years old and has no camera filters enabled, the browser was accessing the camera directly. The solicitor, now very curt and terse - clearly suspects me of doing something wrong - said I'd have to speak to Legl about it. I tried emailing Legl and they told me they were unable to discuss it with me and I would have to speak to the solicitors. Who said I should speak to Legl. You see where this is going.

tl;dr sent in two forms of valid ID, offered no other option, Legl's computer said no, the company (and any other service employing Legl's ID services) has now effectively blacklisted me.

I'm fine, I just went with a different conveyancing solicitor who doesn't use Legl. But that's pretty fucking scary. Some bullshit quirk of Legl's algorithm insists you're doing something shady and there's no recourse, no real human will consider the situation, you're just locked out.

It's not just Legl - I got lucky with my solicitor but they all use these algorithmic or AI powered systems and any one of them could turn on you for completely black-boxed reasons and there's nothing you can do about it. Computer says no, bureaucracy says no.

Last Friday, had my buyer pull out claiming they can't get a mortgage on the property due to the knotweed and lack of a plan for it. That's normal, everyone on this sub will recognise that situation.

Just spoke to the local knotweed firms, trying to sort a plan. They say they can't do one for me as they're getting out of the business - says mortgage lenders don't care enough about knotweed these days so there's no future in it.

Additionally, the buyers initially said they were funding the purchase by releasing equity and I know they are professionals, working in the mortgage industry.

1. What the knotweed firm said, if true, is a sea-change for a lot of people with properties out there that I'm glad to be able to share with you.

2. Everything considered, something smells off to me. What do you think?

Everything's in the hands of the solicitors. I don't want to get ahead of myself, but what next?

What and where do I start preparing for the actual move? Any recommendations for reasonably priced cardboard box suppliers?

They're the first people to get hours in playing and know far more about how the engine works than anyone else. Does it ever cause problems somehow? Do you and your team have to stay off the leaderboards/MP? Or, once it goes live, do you run into players who are immediately better than you?