Breeze & Wyles - Anybody used these guys for conveyancing?

Most_hated_Breeze+Wyles

great.user.name wrote: »

This sounds horribly accurate to me! I hope you have completed by now? I am worried we are heading down the same road with this...

I am a first time buyer and unfortunately we have also been allocated Breeze and Wyles as our solicitor. For a completely no-chain purchase this should in theory have been a relatively fast transaction, sadly this has not been the case and I actually had to call our bank and retrieve some information myself because the solicitors tried to justify that one letter per week was sufficient in order to chase up paper work.

This has now happened a number of times, and I am at a loss as to why I the paying customer have to do their job for them! It seems they are simply not prepared to pick up the telephone and contact our vendors solicitors or our bank. Everything is done via post or dare I say it FAX... no emails are sent and no phone calls are made.

We are now in a situation whereby we are calling them twice a day... each time I call I get different information and excuses from that of my partner, and each person we talk to we have to explain our situation over again... after spending 15 minutes on hold just to get through to a call centre.

At no point was I able to get through to a supervisor or manager, and despite asking that I get put through so someone who can help me further.

To add insult to injury we are now being told that our case has taken along time because it has changed hands 3 times due to solicitors being on holiday or on maternity leave. Which is fair enough, we are all entitled to both holidays and maternity leave... BUT this is simply not my problem as a customer and I really couldnt care less if staff are on holiday, it certainly isnt an excuse I am willing to accept... since at no point were we informed prior these delays. It was only after 3 phone calls that one of the call center attendants let slip that our case had been passed from pillar to post. Had we been kept in the loop from the off, I'm sure we would have been a little more understanding.

When it came to sending our contract, sale agreement and land registry, my partner had expressly asked that it be sent first class or special delivery as we had made special arrangements with work to get the documents signed and returned the same day (as we were worried that the process was taking so long already) ...needless to say the package didn't turn up on the day it was meant to, and when I telephoned to query this the response was ' It has been posted on (dd.mm.yyyy), have you checked through all your post today? have you checked you are at the correct delivery address? I cannot confirm that your documents were sent out first class.' I was pretty shocked to be patronized like that! The package turned up a day late, with the postage mark dated for the previous day... so that proves that it was clearly not even posted on time, let alone at the time of the phone call... despite promises and reassurances from the solicitors that it would be dispatched the very day my partner had requested it.

At this point I completely lost all faith in the company... they have let us down at every turn...failing to provide even a basic level of service and communication.

If you want a quick and efficient service, bite the bullet and pay more for a capable solicitor. I am extremely unhappy with the following:

- Lack of communication
- Lies about who is handling our case, and generally being 'fobbed off' at every opportunity.
- Failing to actively chase up important documents and generally be productive.
- Call centre staff being very dismissive and sarcastic on the phone
- Poor telephone service in general, especially having to wait at least 10minutes on hold each time you call up.


In conclusion, I have contacted our bank and made a formal complaint. They have now launched an investigation into our case & Breeze & Wyles. I am completely and utterly exhausted in dealing with this company...and I resent having to pay for a frankly shoddy service.

Has anyone else had a similar experience? Is there light at the end of this long tunnel?!

Thanks

yripper wrote: »

The (unhappy) list above is EXACTLY what I'm currently experiencing and I wouldn't mind so much about errors or delays but the lack of communication and dismissive tactics used by the phone staff (sorry 'case handlers') is frustrating to say the least. Unfortunately this reflects badly on my mortgage provider as they're the ones who appointed B&W to me in the first place via their panel. Who was I to know that I'd get a poor service by default.

When querying time frames or correspondence from the vendors solicitor they simply do not know answers to these questions and always promise to find out and email or "call back" but nothing ever comes of it. Every time I phone I'm put in a queue and guaranteed to wait at least 5 mins, with the highest wait so far being 18 mins. Dealing with these people and taking time out of work to phone them and wait in queues simply to be dismissed like this is becoming a serious issue.

It's funny how there was no communication issue when they phoned me up straight away for payment/ID check???

Recently I've been recording every conversation and noting all dates and correspondence down so I can prove incompetence. It's just a shame I didn't do this from the start as my list would be double in size. I will be making a formal complaint to B&W if I can speak to anyone who know's what they're on about, failing that the Legal Ombudsman. My mortgage provider will also be notified of B&W failings.

...and these people call themselves professionals.

yripper

- Call centre staff being very dismissive and sarcastic on the phone

EXACTLY,

CALL CENTRE STAFF BEING VERY DISMISSIVE AND SARCASTIC ON THE PHONE!!!

They're like "Yes we understand your worries, we're so sorry that we can't help, but that's what you gonna get, so live with it okay?"

Call them 10 times a day 10 days a week to annoy and until they either a) decide to shut their business down to avoid dealing with frustrated clients, or b) move their a** faster and do something in return for their earnings (it's not as if they're doing charity for you!!)

goldfish109

Hi All,

I'm going through the same thing at the moment and I'm glad I found this to know that I am not the only one.

I am filing a complaint and hope this would be sorted out soon.

I will keep you all here posted if it would be different this time, for my case.

Thanks for taking the time and share your reviews with everyone. It is useful to know in advance!

Demi_pud

I have no experience in property buying but am currently buying a shared ownership property (not a new build) and neither myself nor the vendor are in a chain and are both keen to exchange asap. Housing association said the estimated completion date was end of November but the whole process seems to be taking ages! Every time I call them I get told they are waiting for enquiries to be returned and have 'sent a letter'. Why are they working with snail-mail instead of using emails and telelphone calls? - is this normal?

First communication I got from them was mid September so the process has been going for nearly 13 weeks now. For purchase of a flat in a 4-year old building where the vendor and buyer are both keen to complete asap and are not in chains this seems excessive...?

Yorkie1

Demi_pud wrote: »

I have no experience in property buying but am currently buying a shared ownership property (not a new build) and neither myself nor the vendor are in a chain and are both keen to exchange asap. Housing association said the estimated completion date was end of November but the whole process seems to be taking ages! Every time I call them I get told they are waiting for enquiries to be returned and have 'sent a letter'. Why are they working with snail-mail instead of using emails and telelphone calls? - is this normal?

First communication I got from them was mid September so the process has been going for nearly 13 weeks now. For purchase of a flat in a 4-year old building where the vendor and buyer are both keen to complete asap and are not in chains this seems excessive...?

Letters are not the most common form of communication but not unusual.

Some documents have to be done by post i.e. hard copy rather than email, for legal reasons.

Shared ownership is often more complicated than straightforward purchase.

12 weeks is the average standard purchase period so you are by no means taking an excessive length of time.

Get your solicitor (I assume this is B&W - otherwise why did you post on this particular thread?) to set out to you in writing a) what enquiries they have received; b) what enquiries and other documents etc they are waiting for; c) when those enquiries were first sent / subsequently chased; d) whether there's anything you can be doing in the interim.

People frequently come on here saying that their conveyancer is at fault because things are not happening at a speed which they presume they should. Sometimes the conveyancer is at fault. Often it's another party or their solicitor but the conveyancer gets the blame.

finisc

I agree with the other posts. They seem to be in the stone age, still doing most things by fax and post. They've failed to reply to my emails promptly. They've failed to chase my lenderwhen they sent some correspondence to them which failed to arrive (by fax of course)....it took them 9 days to pick up the phone to lender and check despite my repeated querying of what is going on.

I have 2 people who are on a job share arrangement and they don't seem to communicate with each other. On one day they were both off and then did not respond to my email until working days later. It should not be my job to make them communicate with each other

Overall poor so far - would avoid them and pay up for some more efficient service. I was allocated them by my lender. Much better to go off personal recommendations.

Boris.13

Oh, how I wished I had used this forum when we were buying our house back in December 2011! They have been described to us by another solicitor as being "bucket shop" solicitors; you never get to speak to your assigned case worker and no one knows who you are when you do contact them.
Whilst completing their "diligent" (use the term loosely) searches they failed to alert us to the fact that, as we have since found out, that our property had an "improvement indicator" against it on teh Valuation Office Agency VOA website. This indicates that they have the right to come and inspect your property and decide if it need srebanding. We were sold the property by all involved as one property and a band D for council tax purposes. In April 2012 we were visited by teh VOA and informed that in addition to the band D for the main part of the bungalow that the en-suite extension would attract its own band A rating as self-contained unit. I have fought this ever since. I complained to estate agents and Breeze & Wyles and both denied any responsiblity in this matter. The Legal Ombudsman refused my complaint telling me that it was not part of their remit and in any case I should not expect perfection from them. This has caused me a great deal of stress and financial pain subsequently. Our story was aired on the BBC1's The One Show on Monday 12th May 2014. PLEASE do not listen to the Nationwide Building Society when they convince you to use these people.

cpheonix

I'm glad I didn't read this thread before I bought a place - I probably would've asked the HA who recommended them that I'd find me own!

To be fair, they were fine, I've just completed through them. While our initial lawyer did 'suddenly' leave the company halfway through the process (who we never spoke to anyway), we were nonplussed.

I will say that our calls were answered most of the time but it did seem like they were particularly anxious to get rid of us (on the phone). Not a nice way to be treated but our questions were responded to nonetheless.

I've heard much worse from other buyers.

Stephenph

Having a property company I used to use them a lot for commercial leases Then the partner I was dealing with left, and problems started. higher costs, less knowledge of our needs, 2 or three came and went, so we moved elsewhere..

Ranjanx

I didn't have a choice for my remortgage as nationwide had these forced on me. So some shame and blame goes to them for keeping them around despite the volumes of negative feedback online and all correct. Hard to contact, wouldn't respond, take ages to progress etc etc. I'm on my rounds of internees to add my share of feedback just so the forum threads reflect they are still worth avoiding.