Warning - do not use wolstenholmes solicitors

Geniveve

l am really sorry about this for you.-please email me at [EMAIL="memsab@gawab.com,if"]memsab@gawab.com,if[/EMAIL] l can be of any help,
l contacted the Birmingham post,but they werent interested?time to put it on Tv,l am up for it,but will need more proof.

Am sure we can do something about this Company,and the money lost

Geniveve

simonlilly

the Birmingham office closes this Friday and all the files will be transfered to manchester

jumpexchange

I think we should be a little careful about what you believe re Home solicitors. We need real evidence on them, which I dont think there is, unlike Wolstenholmes. I can't help wondering if this Imran who shares a name with the managing partner of Wolstenholmes who is slagging off Home Solicitors -could it be sour grapes because he lost his staff to them? We don't know about them but we know that Wolstenholmes have ruined a lot of people's plans and caused absolute havock. I dont know how they live with themselves. i hope they are ashamed. If we treated our patients like that in my work (NHS) then you would all be doomed!

M00ngate

jumpexchange wrote: »

I think we should be a little careful about what you believe re Home solicitors. We need real evidence on them, which I dont think there is, unlike Wolstenholmes. I can't help wondering if this Imran who shares a name with the managing partner of Wolstenholmes who is slagging off Home Solicitors -could it be sour grapes because he lost his staff to them? We don't know about them but we know that Wolstenholmes have ruined a lot of people's plans and caused absolute havock. I dont know how they live with themselves. i hope they are ashamed. If we treated our patients like that in my work (NHS) then you would all be doomed!

Jumpexchange, I have based my findings on solid evidence collected from investigations that I have conducted over the last few weeks, I would be more than happy to share my findings- I have emails, documents, scanned copies of 'agreements' negotiations of shares etc this is a great deal deeper than we imagined.

All this defending one firm and tarnishing another is a weak and pathetic strategy, do you not realise that anyone with more than one and a half brain cell can go figure this out??? even down to the sites and the way they have been built are very similar aswell as the fact that none of the employees of one firm cannot deny that they used to work for the other.

It is a great disapointment and shock to learn that Law firms in this country are able to expose loop holes like this and the fact that they exsist for this industry in the first place. I would like to know what the law society are doing about this.

So I take it that Home Solicitors are responsible for my case which 'Wolstenholmes' bodged up??..

Catwoman8950

saverextraordinaire wrote: »

I am a first time buyer struggling to exchange as the vendor's solicitors is Wolstenholmes. My solicitor today received a generic email from Wolstenholmes which says:

"We have seen a recent increase in the influx of work and have unfortunately not been able to provide a high level of service that we are accustomed to giving our clients.
To counter this we have been liaising with a local firm in Greater Manchester to assist in the work load.
If completion has not been set for before 21 December 2009 then your file has been transferred and you will shortly receive communication from the assisting Firm.
If you wish to dis-instruct us or our assisting firm then please let us know and we will arrange for your file to be transferred to your desired solicitor and a refund will be issued shortly thereafter by way of cheque.
We apologise for the inconvenience caused and hope that you appreciate that these steps have been taken to raise the level of service for your transaction"

Does anybody know who the "assisting firm" is and their reputation for service?

Whilst this is not directly related to conveyancing I wanted to post here about my experiences with Wolstenholmes.

They have been handling the probate of my late mother's estate which is not yet finalised. The performance of their Wills & Probate department has been no better than their Conveyancing department - passed from one solicitor to another without warning, failure to respond to my calls and e-mails etc., etc. It was lucky that I was tipped off by my estate agent a few weeks ago and and I managed to take the sale of my late mother's property out of Wolstenholmes' hands just in time.

As my probate matter is not yet finalised, I contacted their Managing Partner by e-mail yesterday to express my concerns (I can confirm that nobody else in their Heald Green, Cheadle office is picking up the phone or answering e-mails). He phoned me back within 15 minutes. He confirmed that they were handing over case files to another firm of solicitors but didn't say who. He also denied they were going into administration (tip: look out for an announcement in the London Gazette - should be available online). Nevertheless, I am extremely worried. My biggest problem is that I am not resident in the U.K. and have little control over what is going on with Wolstenholmes. I think my only course of action now is to get my case file transferred to my new firm of solicitors a.s.a.p.

I would like to thank all the posters on this forum who have alerted me to what is potentially a very nasty situation. If I don't get a satisfactory resolution to my probate case, then I plan to make an official complaint to the Law Society.

I don't know what to think about Home Solicitors. I do know that their CEO is a former employee of Wolstenholmes because I met him earlier this year.

sueanne21

jumpexchange wrote: »

Well, too late for us. Becuase of this solicitor firm not doing what they have been paid for, our buyers have decided enough is enough and pulled out. Our chain has collapsed and 7 different households are now back to square one, several days after our supposed completion date and thousands of pounds down. Emotionally, I don't know how we move forward. This is real lives they are playing with. I can't contemplate how to move forward - this was our forever home. We were virtually there. We had so much invested in it. I can't believe they can do this to us. We're devastated.

I feel so very very sorry for you jumpexchange and everyone else in your chain...they have our 300 too and have done nothing but a unprofessional email, we have chased them constantly via email and phone, we live out of the country and are preparing to come back to live, we were told completion would be possible before Christmas as we will arrive back in UK 18th Dec...feel so stressed Ive even had pains running down my left arm as Im so upset, so I know what your going through. They really are SCUM and how they are allowed to have traded over the past year god knows....The owners must drive around in nice fancy cars and have lush homes thanks to people like us on this thread, well what goes round comes round.

VHB2009

I too have received a less than professional serivice from these so called solicitors. No communication, claiming I should have signed items - which they never sent, saying they haven't received documents (which were signed for by recorded delivery) and generally very poor at keeping you updated.
After 3 days of myself and my estate agents trying to get hold of them without any success, I actually rang an estate agent on the same street as them, only to find out that Wolstenholmes had ceased trading yesterday!! (15/12/09) Still nothing official through the law society, but the vendors solicitor who I am buying the property from have confirmed they have had word that Wolstenholmes have ceased trading.

Even without this happening, I would still say they were the most incompetant so called professionals that I have ever had the misfortune in dealing with. I am not sure what to expect now, but I do hope that in the future, these poor excuses of solicitors are never allowed to begin trading under a different name!

Catwoman8950

Geniveve wrote: »

l am really sorry about this for you.-please email me at memsab@gawab.com,if l can be of any help,
l contacted the Birmingham post,but they werent interested?time to put it on Tv,l am up for it,but will need more proof.

Am sure we can do something about this Company,and the money lost

Geniveve

How about contacting Watchdog at the BBC?

suttonjon

Hi I'm a newbie, I've signed up just as I'm incensed with Wolstenholmes and the joke of a service that they offer, if you could call it a service.......
They been attempting to handle a sale and purchase for me and to be honest raising the dead is easier than speaking to this bunch of clowns.......
They've taken money from me for searches and i found out yesterday that they haven't even requested them........
My buyer like most others on here threatend to pull out as they haven't been able to speak to them for two weeks.
I changed solicitors on monday and believe from an email i got this morning all my paperwork should be in the post ( i have a royal mail tracking number) so I have the hassle of gettingmy money back now. I've contacted my credit card company to start with so will see what happens.

I like many others have followed the Law Society rules of complaining, but its so frustrating that you just can't do anything, speak to anyone and then have to wait 28 days before the Law Society will start to act.

I've close to hundreds of emails that have gone unanswered and have lost my voice from the number of voicemail messages i've left them.

They need exposing for the shoddy practice that they and I will definatly be doing something about this....

Brucer2244

I'm a newbie too and they caught me for £450 buy and sell -Transaction fell through in late november-cant contact them for their famous "no completion -no fee" plus they have the deeds to my house somewhere-How did you get your documents sent back.