Switching solicitors

sambuick

It might be worth speaking to your solicitor on Monday and explaining that you are unhappy with the service, especially the fact that you were not made aware they were also acting for the other side.
When you signed up with them they should have asked you to sign a document which explained there was a possibility of a conflict of interest. By not doing this, they have committed a disciplinary offence, I.e. You can report them to the sra. You may then see some very swift action.

This happened to us. We received a terrible conveyancing service, from an actual solicitor, who I have used before. It went on and on until 2 weeks ago when they rang on the Monday to say "we can now start moving to exchange". We explained once again we had been ready to go since beginning of may, and because of their mistakes we were still waiting. We also explained we were never informed they were also acting for the other side and we understood this was a disciplinary offence. We went into the office and exchanged and completed two days later. At that point they produced the conflict of interest letter and asked us to sign it (had that days date on it) we refused. If they try and back date the letter to when you engaged them, that's even more serious. I'm sure you can verify this with the sra or law society, if you want to.

Let us know what happens, good luck anyhow


Good luck, anyway

tyler80

sambuick do you know if your bank knew the solicitors were acting for both parties, assuming you had a mortgage?

sambuick

Cash, sorry can't help there.

Pee

Based on your concerns about them being overly relaxed about certain missing documents, I think you should change solicitors. Tell them this is due to the conflict of interest and they should only charge from the work done after you were made aware of the conflict.