Looking for conveyancing advice - Fridays Property Lawyers...

Shedmatic

Hi

I have just joined the Forum after reading peoples thoughts on Fridays Property Lawyers. I was wondering from Bec_Bec if there is an update.

Also has anyone any experience of other conveyancing companies.

Many thanks

Bec_bec

Hi,

Our chain has only just become complete last week so things are slowly starting to move. Hopefully in a few weeks i'll be in more of a position to comment. I am a bit wary having seen other comments on Fridays but will have to wait and see...... i'll keep you all posted.

galachick

My husband chose Fridays to buy his house when we split up. The vendor was already out of the house and wanted quick completion. Husband had cash to purchase in his account. Everyone wanted quick sale. 13 weeks later husband has discovered Fridays sent out the original request for documents to vendors solicitor and have done absolutely nothing since. NOT A THING! He has had to complain to several senior people there only to be told we've passed you on to another conveyancer ... we'll start all over again now. The vendors solicitors say they were under the impression they had supplied everything necessary and that if Friday's were unhappy with anything or found anything incomplete they have never said so. This is just about the simplest sale humanly possible. I'd say they were useless ... and rude!

Mars99

absolutely correct!
This was exactly my experience with Fridays - dreadful!!

gazzap77

Please, I warn you never to go with these jokers. Got a quote for £485 for conveyancing only on a one bed flat. Final bill £1235.

Main bad points were:
Lack of communication. I left numerous voicemails and she never called me back.
Stroppy attitude
Sending out duplicate forms to fill out.
Requesting information that has already been sent to her
Giving answers that were not applicable as it was a private sale and no estate agent is involved.
Requesting wrong information (reports of a leak in 2003. We didn't even move in property until 2007!)
Getting a quote for £465 + VAT ending up with a bill for £1,050.20 + VAT
Dilly Dallying which then lead to exchanging and completing on the same day at an expensive cost.
I had to do her chasing as she was inept.
Don't look at the good reports on here as they are probably fake read the bad points. They are true

dubsey

It's quite freaky that this has come up today, I got a new file today and the buyer is with Fridays and straight away I groaned! I have had them on several files and I have found them a pain to deal with.

I had a file in October that just dragged on and on, paperwork they claimed not to have received etc. I even drove to the vendors house one night and picked up documents that Fridays claimed they hadn't had the copies of (NHBC etc), scanned and emailed them over and they STILL said they didn't get them.

I had one conveyancer that when she was in she was great, returned my calls no problem, asked for my help in chasing the rest of the chain. Only downside was that she took a 4 week holiday and handed the case to someone else while she was gone and absolutely nothing at all happened while she was away. She came back for two weeks and went again for another two! We should all be so lucky.

I will keep you updated (sound like I am emailing one of my vendors!) with how they are on this file!

ince

how many solicitor work at Fridays Property Lawyers?

i cant find them on the Solicitors Regulation Authority website so does that mean they dont use solicitors?

UncleJimb0

Friday's Property Lawyers

A story of total and utter failure.

I am so relieved that I found this thread, but at the same time frustrated I didn't see it months ago.

Today is the day after we were supposed to move.

As many of you have already said, I was enticed by Friday's cheap HIP and initially speedy response. That was where it ended, though.

The past month has been agony. I have been responsible for doing ALL of the chasing of our lawyers and getting in touch with them is next to impossible. Emails will go ignored for days, phone calls are unanswered... but let me start from the beginning.

What I found most frustrating, and something that is never entirely explained to you, is the layout of the company. When you first contact them, you deal with some kind of secretary or telephone operator. You then get assigned a legal manager - in my case David Sampson - who never ONCE (to this day) answered any of my calls or emails. The legal manager then assigns a "lawyer" (I use that term in the loosest sense of the word). Our "lawyer" was Dawn Thomas (I don't name them lightly - I fully intend to name and shame them). The "lawyer", however, still performs absolutely NO work... her assistant - Anthony Tse - seems to do everything.

Again, none of this is every explained to you - so you end up calling and email all these different people, never entirely sure who is dealing with your case.

I have heard many similar complaints from solicitors of our sale and purchase - frequently did do not receive call backs or replies to emails. Yet the few times I got hold of Dawn or Anthony, they are always very defensive and brush off things as being totally insignificant.

Dawn, in fact, I found *incredibly* patronising, apathetic and dismissive - to the point that she made me feel like I was troubling her every time we spoke.

For weeks we kept asking how much money we needed to transfer to them ready for our purchase. For weeks I had ignored emails and never got the figure we needed. When did we finally receive it? The DAY OF THE MOVE! And only then because I constantly harassed them on the phone. We aimed to exchange and complete on the same day and was never told that this would be an issue.

So because we weren't told of the amount we owed until the day we supposed to move we had to pay for a CHAPS transfer. Initially I refused to pay for the legal fees, knowing that we would have issues, but after a conversation with Dawn - who refused to complete the file without the legal fees - I agreed to pay for them by credit cart.


Now bearing in mind I was trying to give them money, this was equally as difficult. The main switch board SIMPLY REFUSE to try and connect you to any department, such as - in my case - Accounts. So I called Dawn back to complain and asked her to transfer me. Five minutes of being on hold and she's still none the wiser. "You may have more luck with Anthony" she said. !!!!!!? So I try to call him myself. Here begins the 4 hours of trying to call Anthony and him not picking up. Eventually I spoke with another assistant who couldn't transfer me so took my credit card details down by hand and had to run them up to the Accounting floor above him!

Meanwhile, by midday, we still had no confirmation of our mortgage being released to us. Phone call after phone call and it was 2 o'clock before Dawn said that Nationwide had just promised to release it today. I asked why it was so late in the day but she couldn't really give me an answer. It took the solicitors of our vendors to explain that they just hadn't requested the mortgage early enough.

Finally, at 3 o'clock, we got a call to say Dawn had received the mortgage, all the monies were ready, so we were basically good to go.

We take the delivery men and van over to the new house and slowly they start unloading. By now it's 3:20pm and our vendor asked us to stop unloading as they still hadn't had confirmation of the funds being transferred to their solicitors. Frustrated and bewildered I tried to call Friday's. Dawn wasn't answering. Anthony wasn't answering. The main switch board still REFUSING to do ANYTHING AT ALL to help. 15 minutes later I get hold of a colleague of Anthony who says that a lady called Marie was responsible for the money transfer. He had to run upstairs again (!!!) to talk to her and she would DEFINITELY call me back in 5 minutes.

She didn't call back in 5 minutes.

Another 10 minutes later I finally get hold of Marie who says that the money should have gone but she wasn't entirely sure.

By this point it's almost 4 o'clock and our vendors solicitors say that it's too late to receive the money and complete the sale. It's all over. We have to reload our van.

I called Dawn to ask why there were such persistent delays, why Anthony had been unvailable all day, why the value of our deposit wasn't sent to us for weeks, why our mortgage was so late in being requested and why she never seemed to have a clue what was going on with my account.

She said nothing. Literally. I had to ask her if she had nothing to say. She made some weak excuses about her trying to keep in with with Anthony via email... "EMAIL????" I said. Honestly, the ineptitude is just astounding.

Essentially, the way I see it, is that the "lawyers" are essentially just project managers...organising (VERY BADLY) other people (presumably the assistants such as Anthony) who do all the actual work. Dawn never seemed to have a clue what was going on. At one point of frustrating on Friday afternoon I said "look, Dawn, shall I just call Anthony myself?" expecting her to say "No, no, I have it under control, I'll sort it out". Instead her response was "actually, yes, that might be a good idea". I mean, seriously!? These are a supposedly professional firm of lawyers?

They are a joke and have caused stress, delays and now ultimately cost us money too (CHAPS payment, additional removal men fees, storage of our furniture, wasted time off work, hotel rooms, it goes on...).

Apologies to readers - this isn't really a well formatted post and I don't think I've really captured the level of frustration or incompetence of Friday's. This isn't the end, sadly. We are now scheduled to complete on Wednesday but I refuse to let Friday's get away with this!!!

suntacasa

I won't recommend Fridays Property Lawyers, we've got a not very nice experience with them. We were threatened by them to be let down 2 days before exchange of contracts as we've complained in a letter about them overcharging us.
What they do? They offer you a very competitive quote via their online form showing you some standard items and keeping some other standard items hidden in what they call "Terms of engagement". If you read those terms of engagement you'll notice lots of extracts many of them standard which should have been quoted up front (such us Governmental fees and so on...).
So, you get excited about their relatively small quote and then you end up paying hundreds of pounds more than the initial quote. Obviously you've ticked the "I read and understood the T&C.." stuff but what you don't understand is what applies and what does not apply to your case as you are not a conveyancer.
We ended up paying £163 more but this after fierce negotiation and threatening them to refer to the regulatory body. We've been charged more than agreed even on quoted items.
Now, after almost two weeks after completion we still don't have all the documents from them, important documents such us FENSA certificate. Our emails sent to them remains un-answered.
One more piece of advice if you still decide to go with them: be careful to what they offer you to buy as you may not need such products. We've been lured to buy HIP Insurance although this only applies for incomplete HIP and some other circumstances. After done some researches and asked the conveyancer to explain why we need such insurance the conveyancer (please note they are no solicitors, they are conveyancers therefore not regulated by the Law Society) failed to convince us the product applies to us.
Once again, be very careful to employ these people. If you need more information please do not hesitate to contact me.

suntacasa

UncleJimb0 wrote: »

Friday's Property Lawyers

A story of total and utter failure.

I am so relieved that I found this thread, but at the same time frustrated I didn't see it months ago.

Today is the day after we were supposed to move.

As many of you have already said, I was enticed by Friday's cheap HIP and initially speedy response. That was where it ended, though.

The past month has been agony. I have been responsible for doing ALL of the chasing of our lawyers and getting in touch with them is next to impossible. Emails will go ignored for days, phone calls are unanswered... but let me start from the beginning.

What I found most frustrating, and something that is never entirely explained to you, is the layout of the company. When you first contact them, you deal with some kind of secretary or telephone operator. You then get assigned a legal manager - in my case David Sampson - who never ONCE (to this day) answered any of my calls or emails. The legal manager then assigns a "lawyer" (I use that term in the loosest sense of the word). Our "lawyer" was Dawn Thomas (I don't name them lightly - I fully intend to name and shame them). The "lawyer", however, still performs absolutely NO work... her assistant - Anthony Tse - seems to do everything.

Again, none of this is every explained to you - so you end up calling and email all these different people, never entirely sure who is dealing with your case.

I have heard many similar complaints from solicitors of our sale and purchase - frequently did do not receive call backs or replies to emails. Yet the few times I got hold of Dawn or Anthony, they are always very defensive and brush off things as being totally insignificant.

Dawn, in fact, I found *incredibly* patronising, apathetic and dismissive - to the point that she made me feel like I was troubling her every time we spoke.

For weeks we kept asking how much money we needed to transfer to them ready for our purchase. For weeks I had ignored emails and never got the figure we needed. When did we finally receive it? The DAY OF THE MOVE! And only then because I constantly harassed them on the phone. We aimed to exchange and complete on the same day and was never told that this would be an issue.

So because we weren't told of the amount we owed until the day we supposed to move we had to pay for a CHAPS transfer. Initially I refused to pay for the legal fees, knowing that we would have issues, but after a conversation with Dawn - who refused to complete the file without the legal fees - I agreed to pay for them by credit cart.


Now bearing in mind I was trying to give them money, this was equally as difficult. The main switch board SIMPLY REFUSE to try and connect you to any department, such as - in my case - Accounts. So I called Dawn back to complain and asked her to transfer me. Five minutes of being on hold and she's still none the wiser. "You may have more luck with Anthony" she said. !!!!!!? So I try to call him myself. Here begins the 4 hours of trying to call Anthony and him not picking up. Eventually I spoke with another assistant who couldn't transfer me so took my credit card details down by hand and had to run them up to the Accounting floor above him!

Meanwhile, by midday, we still had no confirmation of our mortgage being released to us. Phone call after phone call and it was 2 o'clock before Dawn said that Nationwide had just promised to release it today. I asked why it was so late in the day but she couldn't really give me an answer. It took the solicitors of our vendors to explain that they just hadn't requested the mortgage early enough.

Finally, at 3 o'clock, we got a call to say Dawn had received the mortgage, all the monies were ready, so we were basically good to go.

We take the delivery men and van over to the new house and slowly they start unloading. By now it's 3:20pm and our vendor asked us to stop unloading as they still hadn't had confirmation of the funds being transferred to their solicitors. Frustrated and bewildered I tried to call Friday's. Dawn wasn't answering. Anthony wasn't answering. The main switch board still REFUSING to do ANYTHING AT ALL to help. 15 minutes later I get hold of a colleague of Anthony who says that a lady called Marie was responsible for the money transfer. He had to run upstairs again (!!!) to talk to her and she would DEFINITELY call me back in 5 minutes.

She didn't call back in 5 minutes.

Another 10 minutes later I finally get hold of Marie who says that the money should have gone but she wasn't entirely sure.

By this point it's almost 4 o'clock and our vendors solicitors say that it's too late to receive the money and complete the sale. It's all over. We have to reload our van.

I called Dawn to ask why there were such persistent delays, why Anthony had been unvailable all day, why the value of our deposit wasn't sent to us for weeks, why our mortgage was so late in being requested and why she never seemed to have a clue what was going on with my account.

She said nothing. Literally. I had to ask her if she had nothing to say. She made some weak excuses about her trying to keep in with with Anthony via email... "EMAIL????" I said. Honestly, the ineptitude is just astounding.

Essentially, the way I see it, is that the "lawyers" are essentially just project managers...organising (VERY BADLY) other people (presumably the assistants such as Anthony) who do all the actual work. Dawn never seemed to have a clue what was going on. At one point of frustrating on Friday afternoon I said "look, Dawn, shall I just call Anthony myself?" expecting her to say "No, no, I have it under control, I'll sort it out". Instead her response was "actually, yes, that might be a good idea". I mean, seriously!? These are a supposedly professional firm of lawyers?

They are a joke and have caused stress, delays and now ultimately cost us money too (CHAPS payment, additional removal men fees, storage of our furniture, wasted time off work, hotel rooms, it goes on...).

Apologies to readers - this isn't really a well formatted post and I don't think I've really captured the level of frustration or incompetence of Friday's. This isn't the end, sadly. We are now scheduled to complete on Wednesday but I refuse to let Friday's get away with this!!!

...she dealt with our case as well. What can I say? Appaling performance from someone doing conveyancing! She sent us via email some important documents that came out just pixels from the printer! Unreadable, of course. We could not read a letter as they looked like shades of grey and white! Now we are trying to get hold of her to send FENSA certificate. Sent her two emails and still no answer.