Urgent - Any recommended online conveyancers?

thecornflake

We;ve just accepted an offer on our flat and I'm currently shopping around for cheap conveyancing. There are loads of online conveyancers and all are quoting around half of what the estate agent's recommended solicitors charge, but I'm dubious and I would really like to hear any good reviews of any.

Two main ones that seem pretty good so far are -

http://www.nbmlaw.co.uk/
http://www.joslinrhodes.co.uk/ (Actual solicitors with an office which is better)

We really want to complete before xmas. We're only selling, moving into retned house, and the flat we are selling is leasehold. The buyer is a cash buyer as well so no massive holdups are anticipated. We are going to try and arrange with him to have the same solicitors if possible to save a bit on letters flying around between solicitors.

Any further advice that people may have come across would also be welcome - first time selling so haven't been through this before.

chicarg

You will find quite a few threads in this board recommending Conveyancing warehouse: http://www.conveyancing-warehouse.com/

and also Abode conveyancing: https://www.abodeconveyancing.co.uk

Both are linked to "real" solicitors firms and seem to be speedy and efficient, and also cheaper than traditional conveyancers. Just do a search in here to find out people's comments.

In my case, we went for Abode conveyancing and so far so good, although as we have not completed yet I can't give you the final recommendation...

thecornflake

Just a quick thanks for the recommendations - found a few more for Abode and they were the cheapest anyway - £419 compared with £819 if we went with the solicitors recommended by EA.:money: When I gave the EA details of the solicitors we have been given by Abode they seemed quite nasty about it - 'You shouldn't use them' etc etc. When they gave us their quote they said 'That's a special rate, we'd be VERY surprised if you can beat it'.

Ha Ha Ha. Will keep sig up to date with progress...

Sting_2

You might have a few problems if you have the same solicitor as your buyer since this might constitute a 'confliction of interest'. The solicitor works for you, not the buyer and therefore may not take on the case. They MIGHT get round it by using a different partners in the firm.

Just ignore the EA comments about the solicitor you want to use, they will be making commission by getting you to use them, and I imagine the solicitor pays that from the expensive fees!!

DavidHM

Just a small point: you are very, very unlikely to be able to have the same solicitors as, if any problems do arise, one solicitor could not effectively represent both your interests.

i.e., if the property turns out to be made out of Victoria sponge, and not brick, it is in your interest to sell for the full value and not in the buyer's interests to pay the full value.

Consequently, even if there are no real problems there probably will be answers to enquiries that aren't as good as they might be and therefore no one solicitor (or firm of solicitors) should act for you both.

thecornflake

DavidHM wrote:

Just a small point: you are very, very unlikely to be able to have the same solicitors as, if any problems do arise, one solicitor could not effectively represent both your interests.

i.e., if the property turns out to be made out of Victoria sponge, and not brick, it is in your interest to sell for the full value and not in the buyer's interests to pay the full value.

Consequently, even if there are no real problems there probably will be answers to enquiries that aren't as good as they might be and therefore no one solicitor (or firm of solicitors) should act for you both.

They have confirmed that the same solicitors can't be used, which is fine because the buyer is using an expensive local one anyway.

On a much more serious note, although the house is made of victoria sponge the quality of jam holding it together is very good - homemade, none of your mass produced rubbish with plastic fake seeds and so I hardly think there will be any issues there.:rolleyes:

toontastic

Got mine from https://www.conveyancing-quote.com they seem to be very good, put me in touch with a solicitor in Southampton who seems to be working her socks off for me and is always quick to reply. I'm from the North East by the way so it's not as if we're close to them.

The fee for them came in lower than anywhere else I could find and I had looked at all of the above. Basically what I would do is get quotes from all the places that get mentioned in here and then go with the cheapest.

wbcoms

"Your mileage may vary" - but I'd stay away from online solicitors. :eek:

The person who is buying my house has an online solicitor in London (both us and the buyer are in Yorkshire.) She is part of a bricks & mortar firm of solicitors but I expect she is kept locked up in a dark back room most of the time.

I went on their website to see what they quote for the purchase of my house. The search fees etc. are extra, but for the solicitor's work they are charging £199.00! This appears to be approximately half the going rate.

You really do get what you pay for. We have been hassled with inappropriate enquiries. She does not understand the replies my solicitor has given her. She is making enquiries about things that have nothing to do with the house sale. She lost the first lot of paperwork my solicitor sent her. She says she has sent letters to my solicitor but they never materialise.

Worst of all - noone (i.e. my solicitor, the EA, other solicitors up and down the chain) can never contact her. She is always busy or out of the office or unavailable. She never returns calls. She does not use a fax machine. The list goes on. We thought our house sale would be straightforward as we bought the house less than a year ago using the same solicitor who is today selling it!

It's a crazy situation, and the chain will probably collapse at the end of this week because the people we're buying from can't wait any longer.

Maybe it's just a coincidence that she's an online solicitor, but good luck if you go down this route!

thecornflake

wbcoms wrote:

"Your mileage may vary" - but I'd stay away from online solicitors. :eek:

The person who is buying my house has an online solicitor in London (both us and the buyer are in Yorkshire.) She is part of a bricks & mortar firm of solicitors but I expect she is kept locked up in a dark back room most of the time.

I went on their website to see what they quote for the purchase of my house. The search fees etc. are extra, but for the solicitor's work they are charging £199.00! This appears to be approximately half the going rate.

You really do get what you pay for. We have been hassled with inappropriate enquiries. She does not understand the replies my solicitor has given her. She is making enquiries about things that have nothing to do with the house sale. She lost the first lot of paperwork my solicitor sent her. She says she has sent letters to my solicitor but they never materialise.

Worst of all - noone (i.e. my solicitor, the EA, other solicitors up and down the chain) can never contact her. She is always busy or out of the office or unavailable. She never returns calls. She does not use a fax machine. The list goes on. We thought our house sale would be straightforward as we bought the house less than a year ago using the same solicitor who is today selling it!

It's a crazy situation, and the chain will probably collapse at the end of this week because the people we're buying from can't wait any longer.

Maybe it's just a coincidence that she's an online solicitor, but good luck if you go down this route!

Sorry it's going badly for you. I definitley found a lot more good recommendations that bad ones for Abode (no bad ones actually), and when we bought the flat using a local solicitor with no chain either end it took 6 months because we got a really useless woman who asked one question from the freeholder 6 times! I don't think local solicitors are always best, but we'll see what happens I guess.

Hopefully it will work out ok and we'll have an extra £400 in our pockets.:D

Deb76_2

This is probably too late, but I would strongly recommend that you do not use Joslin Rhodes. Their "Customer Charter" is not worth the pixels on the screen. It took them nearly four weeks to act on our initial instructions, they do not return calls, they have lost our documentation and the other solicitor's correspondence. When I phoned after two weeks (in mid Dec) to enquire about progress, I was told "we don't have time to talk to you, call back in the new year". We are now having to micro-manage them through the process. While some of the staff have been pleasant, I have spoken to two people there who were very unprofessional. We may be saving about £350, but in terms of stress and time...? Good luck with your conveyancing.

juno1

Well I have just gone with Joslin Rhodes and hope to have a better time.
They seem to be an agency that contracts out the work to other firms - in this instance Askews and a lawyer named Carla Upton. I hope you did not have the same person!
Can you say more about what micro-managing involved so I can be prepared in case I have to do it.
Thanks,
Juno1
PS in defence of lawyers, my ex-partner is a legal aid lawyer - an area of law which is being squeezed hard. The lawyers in his firm worked way too hard and fast in order to get through the case load. It may be that our desire for lower prices is squeezing conveyancing lawyers - hard to believe but any comments on that would be interesting.