How often should I contact my solicitor - house move

Adorabelle_2

We are currently selling our house to a BTL investor and buying from a woman with no upwards chain. All parties were aiming for completion before Christmas but we are still waiting. I am not sure what the hold up is but I was wondering what is the acceptable number of times that I should be contacting our solicitor? I have been contacting them twice a week for any updates but I get the impression they are getting annoyed and seem to always give me the 'next week' reply . They have also said twice that they have sent us out letters which we have not received. They were not our first choice solicitor as both the other two parties were using our first choice so we had to change.

Thank you for any advice.

borkid

Are you using an estate agent? If so get them to chase everything up, they will be able to talk to all the solicitors involved and let you know what is going on.

Adorabelle_2

Yes but so far we have not been very impressed with them. I do know that they have delayed the process a bit as both our solicitor and the other estate agents could not get hold of them to get our buyers details so it ended up with me having to call them and chase them up.

agrinnall

I did most of the contact with solicitor and estate agents when my mum sold her house and bought another a couple of years ago. I live in Scotland where things happen pretty quickly, and my solicitor is very good and I hardly ever needed to ring her. I found the English system very frustrating for the length of time everything takes and for the lack of urgency shown by the so-called professionals. Towards the end I was on the phone to them several times a day to push them to make sure everything got done. If that annoyed them I really don't care, they were being paid to do a job and if I felt they weren't doing it adequately then they need a kick up the behind.

Somerset70

We were due to exchange prior to Christmas too. We finally did last week. For that to happen I had to contact my solicitor every single day by email and phone. I also went to the office in person. I wasn't particularly comfortable doing it, but I came to realise while this is our life, for them it's just a job. They had actually neglected a crucial file that was holding things up and without my pressure I think the chain would have collapsed. And after what we've been through to get to this point that would have killed me. Sounds harsh but they are paid to do the job, not be our friends.

Adorabelle_2

Thank you for the replies. I am of the same opinion, this is our life and we are paying for a service that i am not happy with. We have a just turned 1 year old and I am 20 weeks pregnant so we are keen to get moving ASAP but they do not seem to have a sense of urgency, like you say. I have spoken to our buyers estate agent this afternoon as she seems to be the only one, apart from me, that is doing anything (shame we are paying everyone but her lol!). I will continue to chase them then, I don't care whether I'm being a pain or not! Thank you guys

G_M

Adorabelle wrote: »

....... I have been contacting them twice a week for any updates but....

You need to be much more specific. You need to establish exactly WHAT the delay is and why Completion did not happen when you expected it.

* What information are your solicitors still waiting for? From whom?
* Have they undertaken and successfully achieved all the searches, legal checks, fianancial preperations relation to your purchase, and if not, which are outstanding?
* Have they received and responded to all the enquiries etc relating to your sale, and if not, which are outstanding?

If there is still a delay, which part of the chain is it? Your purchase? Your sale?

Asking vagualy for 'an update' will get you a vague update.

Once you know where the issue is, you can start pressing the relevant party to take the relevant action.

loubel

As G_M says, ask your solicitor what they are waiting for and whether it's something you can help with.

Richard_Webster

When selling a solicitor sends out a draft contract with various copy documents and when he gets queries from the buyer's solicitor he delas with them.

Have there been any such queries and has he asked OP for information to enable him to give the answers? Has he given them?

If there have been no queries or the queries have all been dealt with your solicitor is waiting for the buyer to be ready. The buyer's solicitor may be waiting for searches or a mortgage offer or for his client to come in and sign the documents. The seller's solicitor has no reason to know what the buyer's solicitor is doing and all he can do is what OP is doing - pester someone else - in this case the buyer's solicitor.

Adorabelle_2

We have been contacting our solicitor now every few days to get an update, using the advice given above (thank you all!) but we are still no closer to exchanging We are not waiting for anything else to be done according to our solicitor. My partner spoke to her earlier and she said that she is waiting on the vendors solicitor to get back to them. I have since spoken to the vendors estate agent who has informed me that the vendor has visited her this morning and after speaking to her solicitor they are waiting for a reply from our solicitor!
I am beginning to doubt how good our solicitor is as no matter how much we ask her to clarify what's going on she always gives us some sort of excuse. Plus again she stated that she has sent out a letter to us giving details on exchange etc but we have not received it. That is three letters now which she has apparently sent us but we have not received.
Is this normal? From what I remember when we bought our current property, our solicitors were a lot more efficient.
Thank you

Gonzo33

Are you able to visit the solicitors office? I would be tempted to pop in and ask for a copy of those letters whilst you're there to save them the bother of sending them again.