Switching solicitors

tyler80

Seriously considering switching solicitors for our house purchase. Is it just a matter of terminating a contract with one and signing a contract with a new one?

Background: offer accepted end of May (no chain), various delays since then, solicitors also acting for vendor. We only learned this recently and recent conversations lead me to believe they are not acting in our best interests

superbabe612

We just switched solicitors on the day we were suppose to exchange contracts, so it's as simple as that! If you're not happy, take your custom elsewhere.
I just told them by phone that I wanted to use another firm and they sent us a reduced invoice for an abandoned sale. We were able to get the results of the searches sent to us straight away because we'd already paid for them.
I phoned our new solicitor the same day and got the ball rolling - they can use the same searches, the vendor's solicitor has got all the answers to the enquiries all ready, but they obviously just need to go through their own procedures.
Good luck!

tyler80

Anyone have any ideas how much of the bill we will be liable for bearing in mind we weren't informed about the conflict of interest?

Yorkie1

Depends what work they've already done ...

tyler80

We were hoping to be ready to exchange yesterday but some issues cropped up on Tuesday.

G_M

A lot of this was covered in your previous thread.

However if switching you'll have to either prove gross negligence/ unprofessional behavior etc, or pay whatever disbursements they've forked out for on your behalf + a % of their fee relating to the work done.

tyler80

I can't see much information about switching at all on the other thread, can you point me at what I've missed?

I've covered some of this in other threads but failing to tell your clients you're acting for the other party, having the same person have access to both vendors and buyers files and advising your clients that no paperwork is required for a boiler installation done last year and it's "not a problem" is pretty shoddy behaviour in my book. No idea whether it falls under gross negligence though.

superbabe612

tyler80 wrote: »

Anyone have any ideas how much of the bill we will be liable for bearing in mind we weren't informed about the conflict of interest?

Our invoice was reduced to £200 for an 'abandoned sale', but we haven't yet decided if it's worth trying to contest it.

Yorkie1

superbabe612 wrote: »

Our invoice was reduced to £200 for an 'abandoned sale', but we haven't yet decided if it's worth trying to contest it.

Frankly if you chose to switch on the day you were due to exchange, that seems like a decent reduction.

Pee

My concern would be that switching would do the opposite of speeding things up. The new solicitor would need to read through the paperwork, ask any questions which had been ommited and get hold of the previous solicitors to exchange etc.

I don't see how delay is acting in the buyers interest? In the sale of a house the buyer wants to sell without hassle, it's the buyer's solicitor who wants to make sure that what they are buying is what they thought they were buying/ what they need - for the purchaser and often their mortgage company, who might have higher requirements.

tyler80

Not acting in our interests because they're now trying to say that the absence of certain documents doesn't matter....

I would love to exchange on Monday, but I also want to be confident that things are done properly.