O'Neill Patient Solicitors - Anyone had to deal with them?

chappers

I have had two dealings with O'N P one was when they were acting on behalf of our vendor .They were like most other large panel conveyancy firm, generally slow moving and cumbersome and did "misplace" the odd document my solicitor sent, they got there in the end though.
The other time was on a remortgage where they couldn't have been more efficient the whole thing was over in 6 days from application to money in the bank, so to speak.

miggy55

Had dealings with this company and quite frankly their service is appalling. Never spoke to the same person twice. Never got one single phone call from them during the whole conveyancing. Had to chase them on several occasions to see how everything was going. I even took some documents over to them to ensure that things would move along quickly, and put them through the door, and when I phoned the next day they said they had not received them. When I said that I had put them through their letter box they suddenly found them. When the conveyancing finally went through they conveniently kept my money for 24 hours and only released it when I repeatedly phoned them. (Down to an admin error apparently). I know it's going into their bank account and they are earning a bit of interest. I wonder how many thousands of pounds are there?. All down to admin errors of course. AVOID THIS COMPANY :mad:

alexp20008

I have recently completed on my first property and can quite honestly say i could not have done it without the help and support of Oneill!! The whole process of the sale was a nightmare from start to finish mainly because it was a probate situation and also because of a retention put on the mortgage but Oneill were the ones who actually made it happen. Les Patient and his team gave a huge amount of invaluable advice and support throughout the process, the communication was second to none and with regards to fees i had researched a fair bit before we went with them and they were the most competitive so all in all i am a very happy customer :j

Would not hesitate to reccommend the compnay to anyone who asks me, they are fab!!

Dukesy

Not in Stockport and never had any dealings with the firm named here, but there does seem to be a real problem in the world of conveyancing.

When we bought our current house, the vendors solicitor took SO long that the vendors threatened to put the house back on the market. Their solicitor was blaming ours (who we know very well and who is very efficient) for the delays which they were, in fact, causing. It suddenly all moved very fast when OH rang them up and offered to run a courier service between their solicitor and ours when it transpired that documents were taking several days to arrive at our solicitor's office.

Coincidentally, the same solicitors had been employed by the vendor of our previous house. On one occasion, instead of sending whatever important document was required, they actually sent our solicitor a fax of a piece of newspaper. I kid you not.

Solicitors are a bloody law unto themselves...

Angry_Girl

It is interesting to see that problems with this company stem back for over 18 months, yet they don't seem to have taken any of this feedback on board. My buyers are unfortunately using this firm and we have today, yet again, not exchanged due to this dreadful firm.

We accepted an offer on our house in February, from an investment buyer. We were vacating the property so there was absolutely no chain involved whatsoever. We have done everything asked of us immediately, as has our buyer. For the last three weeks O'Neill Patient have informed our EA and our Solicitor that they are ready to exchange yet, surprise surprise, every single day there has been yet another reason why we cannot exchange.

For example, last Monday they said they were ready to go, our buyer had paid their deposit, but the solicitors just had to wait for something to be typed up (seriously?). Tuesday came and went with no news. On Wednesday we were informed, again, that they were ready to exchange but they were just waiting on a revised mortgage offer (due to fact we had to drop the sale price by £5k to retain our buyer). Thursday then came and went with no news. On Friday I was informed by my solicitor that O'Neill Patient had raised more enquiries, despite the fact that they had said on two separate occasions that there was nothing else outstanding. I answered the queries immediately and was telephoned back on Friday afternoon saying that the buyer's solicitors were happy but it was now too late to exchange. I was assured that exchange would happen on the Monday, with a completion on the Wednesday.

Well, guess what??? By 4pm Monday I had heard nothing, so called my solicitors. They had not been able to get hold of our buyer's solicitors all day and could not therefore exchange. I was told that they would be chasing it up again first thing this morning.

I spoke to my solicitors this morning who informed me that O'Neill Patient were ready to exchange (again), BUT they were 'just waiting' for confirmation from the mortgage company that the funds would be in place for Thursday, ready for a completion. I was once again assured that this would be finalised before the end of today.

It is now 5.30pm and I have heard nothing. Again. To say I'm angry is an understatement. I accepted an offer FIVE MONTHS ago to an investment buyer, and I vacated my property THREE MONTHS ago. That is three months that I have been paying my mortgage, insurances and utilities while I have been waiting for my buyer's solicitors to exchange and complete.

I am absolutely furious and I sincerely hope that the manager of O'Neill Patient still reads these boards as I would like to express my displeasure at his firm, as well as scoff at his claim that he 'really cares'. If you care that much, would you like to help me out with the 900 quid I'm haemorrhaging each month on my old house while I sit around and wait for you guys to pull your finger out and do your job????

Angry_Girl

Just to let you know, the reason I'm a newbie on here is because I've never been disgusted with a firm enough to write on a forum before. However, this company have pushed my patience way beyond its limit.

cheatthecheatingcheaters

O'Neill have totally ruined our house sale. They were representing the buyer, and they sent the contracts to our address, not his! Then they failed (forgot?) to begin the searches. Our solicitor chased them for weeks. "We are waiting for searches from the council".

I called the council and discovered no such searches had ever been requested. They hurriedly began the searches after this was brought to their attention but proceeded to lie to their client and to the agent, saying as before that they have been waiting ages for the council.

They are a Fischer-Price organisation. They are not at all thorough, they are liars and they will f*#k up your sale or purchase.

When they screw you over, they will go in to hiding and refuse to answer calls.

Avoid.

cheatthecheatingcheaters

Sounds great! Tell me, how long have you been working for O'Neill?

alexp20008 wrote: »

I have recently completed on my first property and can quite honestly say i could not have done it without the help and support of Oneill!! The whole process of the sale was a nightmare from start to finish mainly because it was a probate situation and also because of a retention put on the mortgage but Oneill were the ones who actually made it happen. Les Patient and his team gave a huge amount of invaluable advice and support throughout the process, the communication was second to none and with regards to fees i had researched a fair bit before we went with them and they were the most competitive so all in all i am a very happy customer :j

Would not hesitate to reccommend the compnay to anyone who asks me, they are fab!!

TeamLowe

I'm in the middle of my first house purchase and have had absolutely no issues with O'Neill Patient so far, my contact has been very quick to reply to emails with questions and everything so far has been handled quickly.

any delay has been due to the seller's solicitors not doing their part- although i wonder from this thread how many sellers are told it's the buyer's solicitors and vice versa, always easy to blame the other party!

There's still plenty of time for them to mess it up i'm sure, but so far i'm pleased with their work. it just seems such a shame that a fairly large company such as that (the offices are quite large so i assume there's lots of staff) is letting one or two lazy/incompetent staff ruin their reputation as this thread seems to suggest that it's pot luck if you get good service or not, which isn't acceptable to any company

Experienced_BuyerSeller

It seems to me that the majority of the posters on this forum complaining about O'Neill Patient aren't even their clients. It's quite obvious that when experiencing difficulties on their own sales or purchases, the easiest thing to do is to vent spleen in an anonymous internet forum against the easiest target who you know the least about.

I've used this firm on a number of occassions, both to buy and sell property, using more than one of their lawyers, and each time the experience has been smooth, informative and proactive. Yes, there were transactions which didn't move at the speed I would have liked, or which didn't complete within my desired timescales, but at each stage I was told why, who was being waited for and what was being done to progress things.

At no point did I consider it to be the right thing to do to go onto the internet and complain about the firm acting for my buyer or seller. If I wanted to make displeasure felt, I would speak to my buyer or seller directly to find out the truth, and in most cases it was always my buyer or seller's lawyer who was trying to cover their own backs by blaming mine, safe in the knowledge that it would be hard to prove that wrong.

I for one would recommend O'Neill Patient. :T