Don't use Hammonds Direct

jangor_2

Does anyone know how to find a reliable solicitor. My house has just gone under offer and I am clueless as to which solicitor to instruct and what I should expect to pay. There seems a range of solicitors online but where do I find the best service. Any tips very gratefully received. This thread has made me very concerned.

Richard_Webster

Do a Google search for "Conveyancing" followed by the name of your town or area. Then look at the websites and phone them up! See what they have to say for themselves - do they sound as if they know what they are talking about? As about extras and so on.

As a conveyancing solicitor I believe the information given in the post to be useful but I accept no liability except to fee-paying clients.

robwend

ooh i do hope you aint sued for naming and shaming:D

Alexei

Having finally completed a purchase where we were using a local conveyancer and the vendor was using legalmove, I would try very hard never to have any contact with them ever again.

Endless delays, "lost" correspondence, the vendor unable to issue instuctions due to being held in a telephone queue for 30 minutes +, not communicating with the next solicitors in the chain meaning that our conveyancer had to do that for them... Honestly, in a transaction worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, why try to shave a couple of hundred off by dealing with this bunch of cowboys?

Our purchase was a "straightforward" one, and yet legalmove tried their hardest to make the short chain fall apart. PLEASE, don't do it to yourself, or your purchaser!!

elliemay30

I just wanted to write to say how much iI agree with the statements written about Hammonds Direct. I am an Estate Agent and we have for the last 9 months been 'reccommending' Hammonds Direct to our clients. I personally used them and have just (eventually) completed on my sale & purchase which they dealt with (extremely poorly). As soon as we have our referral fee's due to us we will be cutting them off completely! I would never ever again reccommend that ANYONE uses them for their conveyancing. We were due to complete on July 2nd and after lost letters/poor communication etc etc we didn't end up completing until 30th August (this was our 3rd date for completion!). We were due to simultaneously exchange & complete on Friday 24th August so on the Thursday we were busy packing up the house whne I had a call from my conveyancer to say that there was a caution on the property we were buying and that we wouldn't be able to comlete until the caution had been removed. It took both myself & my husband and 4 days off work (unpaid) to sort the mess out as Hammonds weren't in a position to do it themselves. We had to make several trips to the agents we bought through as well as several phone calls to all the solicitors involved in our chain (which was very short - an investor was buying ours and the house we were buying was empty - thus you would think that it would be very simple!!) just to get completion under way. This is a job which should have been dealt with by the solicitors during the course of the sale - not the day before completion was due to take place!
After finally completing on our sale/purchase I wrote to Hammonds Direct to ask that they take into consideration everything that went wrong (there is alot more which I haven't written about) and maybe offer a goodwill gesture for all that we went through ( I personally think I was very close to breakdown!). Within a week a letter arrived on my doorstep with a cheque enclosed for £50!!!!! Did I bank it? NO! It is still sitting on the mantlepiece while I wait for a further response from them with a much less insulting offer!
I must admit that I have come across a few (possibly only one actually) people who have actually been happy with the service provided - thank goodness as I am the one who 'bigged' up Hammonds in the first place which could well have jeopodised my position in the little independant company which I work for.

mikey1984

i am currently moving house and using hamonds direct for my sale and purchase. the chain is very simple, first time buyer buying mine and the one im buying is empty so only 3.. to date i am in to my 13th week with still no clue to when i will complete. my situation is a little different with the house i am selling in both mine and my parteners name and the new one just in mine.... this has been the cause of the problems. hammond instructed that my partener seeked indepentant legal advice, which she did, they recommended an RX1 form to do with land registry, she also signed consent to morgage.. this should of solved all problems and covered my partener incase i wanted to sell or remorgage.. but hammonds are still not happy.. at present i have had three independant solicitors tell me that everything should of completed weeks ago and that after speaking to hammond conclude that they are incompetent.... i am very disapointed and would not recommend any use hammonds direct.

minimike2

Hammonds have been historically crap going back years.

I cringe whenever one of my clients has to use them though appointment by lenders free legal offers.

wymondham

robwend wrote: »

ooh i do hope you aint sued for naming and shaming:D

if i recall they can only do this if they can prove you are not factual - these posts seems to indicate that's not the case. I'm all for highlighting companies which fail to provide a decent service.

Beetle_driver

I only joined so could reply to this thread. Hammonds have always been poor. I've worked in agency for years and heard nothing but complaints. I've used lots of sols over the years and quite often they get stick they don't deserve. There are good ones and bad ones at the moment i'm using network conveyancing reccomended by our IFA. Did my own remortgae in 10 days and it was complicated.

moanymoany

jangor wrote: »

Does anyone know how to find a reliable solicitor. My house has just gone under offer and I am clueless as to which solicitor to instruct and what I should expect to pay. There seems a range of solicitors online but where do I find the best service. Any tips very gratefully received. This thread has made me very concerned.

Talk to them before you decide, if they are efficient at answering the phone etc then you are more likely to get a good one.

We used a firm called Barbara Taylor in Horsham. They are licensed conveyancers and we have used them for re-mortgages and recently selling. We've also recommended them to friends and colleagues, all of whom have said 10 out of 10. We will use them when we buy.