Now my solicitor is going on holiday!

foreversummer

Hi

Just beginning to think that we may at last be making progress with our house sale and purchase, and now my solicitor tells me she is going on holiday on Friday for 2 weeks!

It is a largish practice and apparently a locum will be taking over her duties. Does anyone know if a locum is likely to exchange contracts in her absence? Or are we basically going to be held up because of it.

I know solicitors need to take holidays and I don't begrudge her one really(?!), but wonder if anyone else has experience of this.

Foreversummer

lilyann1

We were due to exchange in our solicitors absence in the summer.
She went on holiday for 2 weeks in August and handed over our file to her associate.She worked out what we needed to send her for the deposit and it seemed that it was all going to happen fine without our original solicitor present.
Unfortunately through no fault of theirs things fell through just before exchange.As long as you know who is now dealing with your house purchase/sale then it can all continue to happen.

foreversummer

Thanks Lilyann.

That is reassuring. Really hoping that exchange is imminent. Can't bear the though of another two to three weeks delay.

Foreversummer

JennyW_2

It shouldn't cause a problem as your solicitor will pass your file over to an associate to handle. This happened in our chain during the exchange week but it went through just fine

CB1979_2

least you got told yours is going on holiday mine just b*ggered off and didn't even tell me.

i only spoke to her 2 days before she went as well, telling me the sellers wanted to complete asap, i couldn't get hold of her so just transfered to the deposit (£45k!) we exchanged 3 weeks later because of her stupidity!

Worried

I didn't get told anything about mine going on maternity leave. Found out from auto reply to an email I sent. Had to phone and find who had taken over my case. A trainee solicitor had, who soon after went on her honeymoon for 2 and a half weeks. Again not told. I would just advise you to keep in very good contact with the locum and make sure they are doing what they are supposed to, when they are supposed to. They might fobb you off and say they need time to acquant themselves with your file, so just keep on top of things would be my advice, as I lost time in both the handovers for this reason and chain got twitchy!

housebuyer_3

Makes sure you know who is dealing with your file and check with them weekly to make sure things are happening and to check progress.

theGrinch

it shouldnt hold things up provided you keep at all sides.

I remember I was selling once and my solicitor and his solictor went away on holiday (not together!), the buyer got married and went on honeymoon and there was a 2 week postal strike.

foreversummer

Thank you all for your comments.

I do feel reassured that things can proceed as normal. But I certainly will chase every couple of days to make sure.

Thank you all once again.

Foreversummer

PoorDave

Should be OK.

At our solicitors it's the secretaries that do most of the actual "work", with the solicitors/partners simply providing "direction", so if your firm is similar it should be OK.

The partners at the top of the firm should keep charge of the situation even while your specific person is away. If not, become a pain in the wotsits, politely!