Utterly incompetent solicitors - but they're not ours!

annapotamus

Hi all. I wonder if anyone on this forum knows of a way to exert pressure on the solicitors acting for the seller of a property? We are the buyers of course, or we hope we are. Without going into detail, our offer on a property was accepted three months ago, the mortgage offer is sorted and the process we have been through since then has satisfied us that our solicitors and the estate agent are operating competently. But the incompetence of the seller's solicitor has been illustrated repeatedly - for example, earlier this week they faxed our solicitor a lease that has every other page missing. Quite clearly it is a double-sided document that has only been photocopied on one side. You'd think that this gaffe, while stupid, was easy to correct, but not for this bunch of muppets. They're now maintaining radio silence on the subject. Meanwhile I'm expecting any day for the buyer of my property to get antsy. Plus our mortgage offer expires in two months, and we probably won't be able to get it extended because of red tape issues to do with my employment status as a contractor. After repeatedly trying to exert pressure through our solicitor and the estate agents, all l I can think of doing is emailing the muppets in question and pointing out that if we lose our property, several thousand pounds' worth of fees and possibly the chance to move at all, because of their blatant incompetence, then I will spend as long a necessary reviewing them quite explicitly on every local and professional forum I can find. I suspect this would hardly make for conciliation, though. Is there anything else we can do??

TrickyDicky101

Surely it's the responsibility of the sellers to exert the pressure? The solicitor in question works for them after all. The estate agent (wanting their fee) will be a good avenue to exert pressure on both seller and seller's solicitor.

annapotamus

In theory yes, but part of the problem is that he's obviously not doing that, or not doing it sufficiently, although we've growled at him via the estate agent. He seems to be a well-off guy, just selling a property he doesn't need any more, so he's not as motivated as people like us who want somewhere to live.

Trollfever

He seems to be a well-off guy, just selling a property he doesn't need any more

The cynic in me says that the vendor is having difficulty in getting the mortgage lender to agree to release their charge on the property.

http://www.legalombudsman.org.uk/

Thrugelmir

Trollfever wrote: »

The cynic in me says that the vendor is having difficulty in getting the mortgage lender to agree to release their charge on the property.

Had the same thought. Solicitors will delay on the circumstances of their client.

Never take appearances at face value........ often deceptive.

Conrad

I've been in the property arena a long time and always find the pushy one in any chain most irksome and I can tell you Solicitors absolutely detest these people that bnjust cant relax and go with the flow in the way most people do.
The lawyers are mature adults and do not need some amateur pushing them.

annapotamus

Trollfever, thanks for the suggestion, we’ll look at whether that is happening. Conrad, while I’m sure belittling non-professionals provides much pleasure to solicitors, you probably agree that it should take second place to doing a good job. This really doesn’t seem to be the case for the company we are concerned about – our own solicitors describe themselves as being ‘in despair’ over their counterparts’ behaviour.

dollydiva

Conrad wrote: »

I've been in the property arena a long time and always find the pushy one in any chain most irksome and I can tell you Solicitors absolutely detest these people that bnjust cant relax and go with the flow in the way most people do.
The lawyers are mature adults and do not need some amateur pushing them.

What rot! Solicitors are in business and like any business are there to make money. Ergo, they usually take on too much work in the hope it will all somehow work out in the end...which it always does, but not without some tears being shed, usually by the buyer, vendor or both.

You sound like you're married to a solicitor or related to one...I'm not, but have worked for one and know exactly what chaos goes on...mature? You MUST be joking! :rotfl:

Trust me, kick up a fuss and they will deal with you to get you off their back.

gunge

My own experience during house purchasing is that solicitors generally do the bare minimum.

I see Conrad has been thanked by a few people for the post. I could only agree with a slightly reworded statement that a competent and diligent solicitor doesnt need anyone pushing them.

The key issue is that not all solicitors are competent and diligent, quite a few need a good push to keep them moving forwards and for a smaller number it is questionable whether or not they are capable of adequately protecting the interests of their clients.

That's just my opinion.

G.

RX-78

I agree with gunge & dollydiva.

The first solicitor I went to had the receptionist answer the questions (they refused to pick up the phone) and the answers were plain wrong. When this was pointed out (after raising concerns about discrepency in original verbal quote and written one) they backed down and pointed all the blame on the receptionist!

Then my buyer's solicitor was incompetent to say the least - he failed to ensure the buyer's lender will release the money in time and hence the exchange was delayed by a week (despite the pressure of timing on the chain needing to exchange and complete within a matter of week). Everyone else's solicitor has managed to ensure this by asking lenders well in advance. It took several letters, faxes, phone calls from EA, my solicitor and eventually me before he got off his fat backside to sort things out. The solicitor was not at all sorry about the problem he was causing.

Good luck! The EAs should be the best people (apart from the seller himself) to exert pressure though.

p.s. my sol was brilliant and would not say a bad thing against her. So not all sol are bad