Choosing a solicitor to sell through.

bitsandpieces

I'll need to pick a solicitor's firm to sell my flat through. Prices seem to start from about £500 inc. The two firms who were recommended by my EA when I bought the place (one of which has gone through a merger) are around this price; the slightly more expensive of the two is the one I used to buy, who were OK but nothing stunning (a few hiccups in the process). The firm linked to my estate agent cost about £150 more, and took ages to give me a quote - so I think that would rule them out.

Anything else I should be thinking about, when deciding on a solicitor? Places to look for good recommendations, etc?

Thanks.

chickmug

Make sure they communicate by email and preferably the person you deal with has a direct line - two points that come to mind.

charliee_3

If you want to go for an online firm what i did was
A) look on their website and see what their set-up is.. is it a normal solicitors office or one of these conveyencing warehouses
b) call them, see how quickly they answer the phone, ask to be put through to conveyencing, ask some questions about the porocess or the quote youve seen online, etc, get a feel for it.. will you have an assigned person or is it just a call centre?
c) see if there are nay reviews for them online or go with a personal recommendation.
d) ask on here if anyone has used them and what their experiences were

i would personally avoid the EA solicitors like the plague as i dont think they pick who they recommend on quality of service...

chickmug

charliee wrote: »

i would personally avoid the EA solicitors like the plague as i dont think they pick who they recommend on quality of service...

Good points and this latter aspect is very very true. They recommend based on the 'scratching each others backs' effect.

bitsandpieces

Thanks. Sorry about the slow reply - but are the cheaper online conveyancing firms any good, or would I be as well to pay a couple of hundred quid more for a bricks and mortar firm? Also, if not using EA recommendations, any other good sources of recommendations for local firms?

charliee_3

i found our bricks and mortar firm through one of the conveyencing comparison sites and they were very reasonable, and have been fine...

thats what i mean about when you get good quote give them a ring and find out what sort of company it is.. what is their website like, can you get to speak to one of the solicitors easily or is it hard to get through.. ask them to send a written quote.. how quickly does it come through... that sort of thing...

Pee

You want someone who will communicate with you in the easiest way and who will take your calls - a direct line could be good, but if yu have a very good efficient secretary, you might find that is even better.

The important thing is you need to communicate through the process so having one or two people to speak to is ideal, having 50 different people in a call centre will be cheaper but very time consuming for you and hard to get anyone to "own" a problem. (Oh yes, I'm Nikki and then there are apparently 30 Nikki's employed there...)