Conveyancing - cheap AND competent? - a pipe dream?

cakinwande

Sorry for the repeat in postings but I really want to warn people what they are getting themselves into when dealing with Wolstenholmes.

Wolstenholmes solicitors Review - I dont believe for ONE SECOND that the people @ Wolstenholmes care about the job they are doing because one, this many people would not have the same negative opinion.

When I was informed that there had been a change in staff (even though I had to call to find this out) I was ever patient. My property is a shared ownership one so myself and the housing association were constantly frustrated with the lack of action from Wolstenholmes.

I have made an official complaint to Legal Complaints Service and I suggest others to the same: http://www.legalcomplaints.org.uk/ho...ontact-us.page

My official complaint:

"Complaints
The Legal Complaints Service deals with complaints about the service that solicitors in England and Wales provide to their clients.
The poor service complaints you are raising are as follows:-

• · Delay – There has been a general delay in progressing your case. Very little work has been done despite you, your partner and your father all regularly contacting the firm to instruct them to execute their duties.
  · Failure to inform –
  • • 1. Two months passed from initially instructing the firm after speaking with your solicitor Ms J Lowe. You later found out Ms Lowe had left the firm but the firm had failed to contact you to inform you of this. The only correspondence you had from the firm during this time was a copy of their terms and conditions and an interim bill for £201.25.
      2. You have only received two phone calls from the firm over the last four months.
  · Costs information deficient –
  
  • • 1. The interim bill you were sent which totalled at £201.25 for professional charges on 12 May 2009 was invalid as you later found out from Mr S Daly that no work had been done on your case during the first two months the firm had been instructed.
      2. You received a cheque for a refund of £112.00 on the 17 August 2009 but no invoice was attached so you do not know what you have paid for. You asked Mr Daly to send you an invoice for the costs of services but you are yet to receive this.
      3. You have been informed by your new solicitors that they had e-mailed Ms Anderson at Legalbrokers and they advised Wolstenholmes had cancelled the searches they needed to conduct. Therefore you have paid £188.00 for searches to be carried out which have not been done.
  · Failure to respond – You made several attempts to contact Mr Daly for further updates on your case but found it very difficult to speak with him. He provided you with very little information and at times did not return your phone calls.
  · Failure to follow instructions – On numerous occasions you have asked the firm to e-mail information across to you but they have failed to do so. The firm have failed to carry out the searches which you have paid for."

Read other poor reviews here:
http://www.touchwarrington.com/business/list/bid/6489328
http://www.tijarapages.com/details.asp?bid=2146598514
http://www.freeindex.co.uk/profile%28wolstenholmes-solicitors-llp%29_126951.htm
http://www.solicitalawyer.co.uk/city-Cheadle/1816271-lawyer-Wolstenholmes.html

naz7372

Hi cakinwande,

As I said before in a previous thread, if anyone still has an ongoing problem with Wolstenholmes please PM me details and I will try my best to get it resolved asap.

I'd like to stress again that we do take complaints very seriously and although you may not see it, behind the scenes we're working really hard to put processes in place and correct any past mistakes.

Thanks,

Nazma
(on behalf of Wolstenholmes)

char1iecha1k

Do not use this firm, they dont respond to communication. They do not have documents that my vendors solicitor sent over a month ago. I can never speak to anyone. Its a nightmare.

ps it appears that naz7372 does not work for Wolstenholmes anymore. Maybe he never did, a quick search in google and it looks as though he is from an outside marketing firm???? sent to clean up the mess???

Richard_Webster

I'm not saying for one minute that you should not engage a good local solicitor/conveyancer. What i am suggesting is that the process has been streamlined but that conveyancers do not always pass on the resultant savings to clients. They prefer to make it seem like hours of work at a Dickensian desk,using pen and ink on ancient parchment by flickering candle light.

We still get most of the documents from other solicitors by DX or post with the result that time has to spent scanning stuff in or photocopying it so we can send it on to clients. Regrettably there is not much point in providing things in electronic format if others are not doing the same.

Some of the big conveyancing factories do not provide e-mail addresses that things can be sent to. I try to e-mail stuff to them but because it goes to a general e-mail it either takes a long time to get to the fee earner/case handler or it blocks documents over a certain size - not helpful when e.g. you are trying to send a PDF of an adverse environmental search for them to obtain further information to deal with the problem.

Last time I dealt with Countrywide Property Lawyers they did not even show an e-mail address at all!

What i am suggesting is that the process has been streamlined

Well some of it has - we can get copies from the Land Registry quickly in most cases online - but the plehtora of new rule sthat have come in - all the fuss about Building Regulations and now Asbestos in blocks of flats etc - Chancel Repairs and so on - it all has to be explained to clients, and that all takes time. Even if the matters seem unimportant, the risks have to be explained so that a buyer makes an informed decision to proceed and in the unlikely eventuality of one of these points actually becoming a live issue in the future, he understands that he took a risk and cannot blame us.

OK you can have standard paragraphs and if anyone looks at my website they will see that I have a page about Chancel Repairs and others about Leasehold Houses and missing Landlords and so on. However not everyone has internet access and there is still lots of stuff that still has to be explained on a one-off basis. That's what takes up our time - all the things where we might get sued if we haven't explained them - because of the current blame culture in our society.