Anyone used Premier Property Lawyers?

Road_Hog

Use a local solicitor, that way you can always go and knock on the door.

panosm

panosm wrote: »

I m using them now as i m trying to sell my property and i now know NOT TO USE THEM EVER AGAIN.

The conveyancer never calls or i cant be put through to talk to her and it is receptionists taking notes and passing on messages.

The people taking messages when asked a simple question answer exactly like that: (this is real by the way) "Do you know roughly how long ***will be on the phone as i cant receive calls being in a meeting for the next 5 hours"
the responce was "Use your common sense,how will i know when she gets off the phone?"

If you are happy with receiveing attitutde like this when you are paying them...i will not be using them again..nor me nor my family.

THe latest calamity of theirs was that they sent the wrong paperwork to the buyers solicitors......they only have to do one thing and one thing only and they $%^&* it up.

Do yourselves a favour and never ever ever use them.

My SAGA with those scums is still ongoing. 6 months later and the sale has not completed. They take on an average 1 month to reply to anything; either myself or the buyers solicitors.
There seems to be a common answer to everythign :"We are doing everything we can to make sure your transaction is as smooth as possible". But when you challenge them on the fact that 6 months since the process started etc etc they go silent. Are they all part timers? Do they paint nails as their full tiem job? No offence to the nail people but if you are advertising your company as solicitors then acts as one. By the looks of things i might have to cancel my Xmas holidays in the offchance of the process finalising as i need to be here. Those holidays cost a fortune and were booked in June! What a waste of time....People please please please do yourselves a favour and stay away from them. I bet you any money that YOU can do it quicker than them even with no previous experience. In a word to summarise them: USELESS.

antilles

I've just completed buying a house using 1st Property Lawyers. Reading this thread with interest, and thought I'd share my experiences.

I went through L&C for my mortgage, who recommended Premier Property Lawyers. I decided I'd find my own conveyancer, and read through Martin's article on conveyancing, which mentioned 1st Property Lawyers (something along the lines of some MSE forum users have had good experiences with them). So, short on time, I decided to go with 1st Property Lawyers.

What you will find straight away is that 1st Property Lawyers are actually the same firm as Premier Property Lawyers. My mortgage company wouldn't deal with them as they weren't on their panel, but they gave me their panel number and said Premier Property Lawyers was their parent company. So L&C ended up putting my convenyancer down as Premier Property Lawyers just to get the paperwork through.

Seems like a professional outfit at first, and your case can be checked online instantly. I really liked the fact that all documents were available online. I was buying a repossessed property so I needed fast conveyancing, and I had heard they were quick. But here are the bad points (and there are a few):

- No face to face contact. So it's difficult to chase people, as you have no office to walk into. I sent several emails which weren't replied to (also sent them through their online contact system, these were also ignored)
- Getting through to 1st Property Lawyers was difficult. You don't have a direct line to the person dealing with your case, it's obviously a call centre. The phone wasn't answered 75% of the time. Terrible service on this front.
- If you like someone to sit down with you and explain a legal document, forget it, they would simply send out documents with a covering letter, saying what and where to sign. Scary if you don't understand what you're signing!
- Lack of transparency on fees. They quoted me an amount for search fees (under £300), then asked for a £355 deposit to cover the cost of searches, promising to refund any money not used. Strangely, the search fees then increased to exactly £355, with no explanation. Also, their quotes and invoices are hard to follow and you end up trying to decipher why you've been charged what (for instance you might get charged £40 for something, then it's named something different on another invoice. Very confusing, had to clarify a few of these).
- The conveyancing process feels like a conveyor belt. I must have spoken with my conveyancer only once in a month, all other calls (at least a dozen) were with random other people. Although my house went through without issues, this might prove a nightmare in a complex case, if you're dealing with lots of different people.
- Sometimes the conveyancing seemed to grind to a halt, so I'd chase it up, then all of a sudden I'd get a flurry of new online documents and activity. Although I can't say for sure, I felt that if I hadn't chased a few things, my case would still be sat there.
- My conveyancer went on holiday on proposed day of completion, and hadn't pushed it at all, meaning I had to deal with someone else. It pushed back completion by a week which meant I could have been gazumped. I was lucky that the person who took over my case pushed it through quickly.

On the whole, I would describe 1st Property Lawyers as a kind of call-centre, conveyor belt type outfit. If you get someone good, then you won't have any issues, but it's a bit of a lottery. If I was buying another house, I think I'd use a local solicitor next time and have the convenience of face to face contact. The problem it seems is that, many banks and mortgage brokers are in bed with these people, and it's getting more difficult to find a solicitor who's actually on your mortgage issuers panel.

On the whole I had no issues with my purchase, but the experience left me feeling I'd paid out a lot of money, and I didn't come away with a 'good value for money feeling'.
If you prefer face to face contact, and don't like chasing people, I'd go with someone else.

onthedgeoftheworld

we are using their service at the mo. the first chaos that they sentt to us was log in detail. they can't spell my husband's email address properly and it took them a whole week to fix it. and i think if we didn't chase it, we wouldn't be here now. now we're waiting for completion. but seems like there will be a delay, not sure in what because we had conversation with our seller, and they said all the complete docs has been sent out since october and they also has replied the recent enquiries since last week. my husband is not the type of person to push, but i am really worried about this. so far the seller still think we're on schedule, but somehow i got the impression there's some delay. what should i do?? i feel like i need to phone them every day. and also there are few ocassion when we tried to phoned the person in charge for us, she always sounded very unhappy that we ask details of stuff and demanding on dates?? i feel like we paid for a very crap service!!

panosm

panosm wrote: »

My SAGA with those scums is still ongoing. 6 months later and the sale has not completed. They take on an average 1 month to reply to anything; either myself or the buyers solicitors.
There seems to be a common answer to everythign :"We are doing everything we can to make sure your transaction is as smooth as possible". But when you challenge them on the fact that 6 months since the process started etc etc they go silent. Are they all part timers? Do they paint nails as their full tiem job? No offence to the nail people but if you are advertising your company as solicitors then acts as one. By the looks of things i might have to cancel my Xmas holidays in the offchance of the process finalising as i need to be here. Those holidays cost a fortune and were booked in June! What a waste of time....People please please please do yourselves a favour and stay away from them. I bet you any money that YOU can do it quicker than them even with no previous experience. In a word to summarise them: USELESS.

And yes it carries on....my buyer changed in July. The incompetence of these clows is unbelievable. THey still didnt inform the company owning the other 50% of the changes. The company owning the other 50% called me today to say that they had only just been told of a change and they wanted to double check with me.
It is now 19th November. Go figure people.....useless.

1miketaurus

Hi All,
I am selling my property and my buyer is using PP Lawyers. This company is slow and I mean dreadfully slow... they have lost paperwork, have asked questions that have cost me money, that they have already been given... not getting back when asked too... the last one to was there phones were down to the immediate solicitor, well how did they receive the call from us then?? and a list of other things. My Solicitor is aghast at how unprofessional they are. Basically they are a call centre that have unqualified clerks and all there work has to be checked by a solicitor... if you imagine about thirty people being under a qualified supervisor, it is similar to that. Ladies and Gentlemen... use a reputable conveyance solicitor... My heart goes out to the other people on here because moving and selling is a life changing event... If your reading this to find a conveyance solicitor... please read the other posts and be kind to yourself and do not use...
Michael

panosm

panosm wrote: »

And yes it carries on....my buyer changed in July. The incompetence of these clows is unbelievable. THey still didnt inform the company owning the other 50% of the changes. The company owning the other 50% called me today to say that they had only just been told of a change and they wanted to double check with me.
It is now 19th November. Go figure people.....useless.

They are so lame the buyer is threatening to pull out by Wednesday. Please AVOID.

HTB_newbie

Hi

In contrast to the posts above, I've used PPL for two sales and two buys and have had a really good experience each time. I've had the same conveyancer each time, so perhaps your experience is dictated by the conveyancer you get. The conveyancer I had was very personable, helpful, sympathetic and primarily proactive. I guess I was really lucky.

antilles

HTB_newbie wrote: »

Hi

In contrast to the posts above, I've used PPL for two sales and two buys and have had a really good experience each time. I've had the same conveyancer each time, so perhaps your experience is dictated by the conveyancer you get. The conveyancer I had was very personable, helpful, sympathetic and primarily proactive. I guess I was really lucky.

I think you are one of the lucky ones. I know someone else who has signed up with them, and they have barely moved on in 30 days,m and are now blaming the other side's solicitors. It really is a conveyor belt company. I think you are correct, it really does depend if you get a decent conveyancer dealing with your case.

antilles

I think that Martin's house buying guide needs updating, as I found 1st Property Lawyers through that. While not a clear recommendation, I bet a lot of people are using their services because of that article.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/mortgages/house-buying-guide

When I got my quotation I mentioned moneysavingexpert and they offered a 'discount', so clearly they are getting a lot of business from here.