The solicitors are the worst

surfatwork

Just a rant against solicitors. Had our offer accepted in mid-feb. Mortgage was offered by the bank in 2 weeks. Since then it's been the solicitors whiling away time.
I am first-time buyer, so I dont have the experience that many of you do. Would love to hear about your experience, and any suggestions to move things along.

Is it normal for solicitors to not chase up?
Do they just send out letters by post (not email or telephone) and then sit back and wait for something to happen?
Is it normal that the buyer has to chase up every week and still things dont progress?
And finally, is it normal that they never ever call or provide a status update?

btw, we selected a local small-firm solicitor, based on that fact that they would be easier to speak to, more keen to close things etc. Nothing of the sort - they are rarely available to take a call, never reply to email, and (I think) have too many cases to get around to completing your work.


cheers

cadenza82

I'm afraid that when we moved a couple of years ago, our experience was similar. We accepted an offer in May and moved at the end of August. I have no idea whether this was a long time or not, but any 'delay' was certainly caused by the solicitors. Ours were completely useless, and the ones on either side of the chain were much the same. They did virtually nothing unless prompted. All the chasing had to be done by us: at the end of the day, they just weren't interested. We had to chase solicitors on both sides. One kept claiming they hadn't received anything, and the other was always 'out to lunch' when you rang up!

If I was to offer any advice, get everything in writing. If they say they're going to do X, Y or Z ask them when you should expect to receive it/hear from them and get them to confirm this by letter or e-mail (or at least keep a log of telephone calls). As soon as the deadline's up, get straight on the phone to them. Never take 'no' for an answer. If you're not getting anywhere, go in and see them face to face (it's not so easy for them to hide then!).

You have to be very strong and very firm with them. At the end of the day, you're engaging them to do a job and they don't come cheap.

Good luck!

David

Thrugelmir

Buying and selling property is stressful. So try and chill out.

Any number of reasons can impact the speed of the transaction.

How long is your chain?

billybear1

Solicitors seem to be the main cause of most peoples problems when buying a house and it is usually due to their speed. I must admit that my solicitors have been fairly decent and seemingly have done everything when they have got it, ALTHOUGH the solicitors acting on behalf of the mortgage co (apparently only GE Money and HSBC do this) are a complete nightmare. They need everything in blood only and then raise around 10 points to be clarified after they have received the very original document. Then at that point decide they need to contact the vendor 2 WEEKS IN!!!!

To me it seems that they don't set out what they want from the start and something throws up more questions than answers and the quest for documentation and reassurance and indemnity insurances continues. It is, at the end of the day though, in their interests (as to not be sued by you) and your own (to not end up buying a load of crap) to allow them to thoroughly complete the transaction.

Annoying though.

Dave_Ham

Just a quick reality check, although I recognise many are slow and rubbish at communicating this is not always the case and there are justufied reasons.

The solicitor will be linking up the chain and there will typically be more than just your sale and/or purchase. You may get an offer on a house and then there is another 7 houses in the chain and therefore if house number 5 does not have an offer the solicitor will not overactively be starting work on your case. They need to receive all sorts of communication to start the process rolling and then some checks can take 2-3 weeks to be returned. Typically not doing this initial work quickly will save the client money if the chain collapses.

Finally and you can see I am not a solicitor, look at what they are paid. They are professionally qualified and fully insured people/companies. Given the actual work involved, say they charge £600 for a sale. The rest they pay out to third parties for checks etc. Put this £600 against the £1,000+ you pay the Estate Agent, who probably phones you too often and chases when not necessary..

Some are bad, but as a profession it is hard work given the clients they balance to make the numbers work.

If there was a specialist solicitors which charged 50% more in fees but gave you prompt updates, chased like hell and were on the case 24-7 - who would pay the extra??

Pennywise

I've just completed the purchase of a small office (999 year lease) and I remain absolutely astounded at the hopelessness and inefficiency of both my solicitor and the vendor's solicitor.

As background, I was already renting the office from the vendor, who lives above, and I've been renting for several years. I know the vendor personally and we talk almost every day. We discussed and agreed terms of the sale of the office between us, including details, such as rights to business signage, apportionment of costs (i.e. building repairs and building insurance etc). We only got the solicitors involved to do the "legalise" and register with the Land Registry etc.

All that was done last November. Instructions were given to both solicitors at the end of November. We prepared a joint "heads of agreement" which we both signed and sent to our respective solicitors. I also prepared a summary of the property, i.e. with internal and external photos, floor plans, site plans, and re-iterated the matters we'd agreed. We genuinely believed that it would be completed within 4-6 weeks as there was no chain, no mortgage - the transaction was about as simple as possible.

December came and went, with neither of us hearing from our solicitors. Early January, I contacted my solicitor to ask why the hold up - he said he'd not had the draft contract from the vendor's solicitors. I spoke to the vendor who in turn spoke to his solicitor, who said it was my solicitor who wasn't responded to his letters. With hindsight, we should have realised we were dealing with idiots and both moved to different solicitors - we wish we had!

With much pushing from both sides, a draft contract was finally prepared and was sent to me for approval. I took one look at it and couldn't believe it. Despite both solicitors knowing the building was was an office with a flat above, the draft contract kept referring to "shop", "other flats" (which there were none), made no mention of business signage, etc. They'd completely ignored the "heads of agreement" and my supplementary document - seemed as if they'd just dusted off a previous lease for a shop with flats above, changed the names and address, and hoped for the best.

I phone my solicitor, who of course blamed the vendors' solicitor. I was sat with the vendor with his solicitor, who of course, blamed mine. Cue another delay of another month before I received what my solicitor said was a correct contract. All they'd done was a bit of tweaking to remove the errors - they still hadn't included the extras we wanted. So I had to give them another ear bashing.

Fast forward another month, and the "final" contract arrived for me to sign and get witnessed. Covering letter assured me it was now right. No it wasn't - they'd got the plan wrong, they'd got the percentage apportionments wrong for building repairs and insurance. All this had been clearly laid out in the initial documents some 4 months earlier! This time it was formal complaint time.

Another month, and what I thought was the right and correct contract which I signed, had witnessed and returned to the solicitor. Then on completion day, vendor's solicitor wakes up and comes out with a list of queries which he told my solicitor had been raised late in the day by the vendor. I asked the vendor - he'd done no such thing - turns out his solicitor had forgotten to complete a checklist and was now holding up completion until he could tick his boxes! These were queries like where the bins are located, etc!

Anyway, six months later, finally exchanged and completed. What an absolute nightmare start to finish. Time and time again, we caught out our solicitors lying blaming each other and blaming the vendor and myself - they are obviously used to it and didn't appreciate that the vendor and myself kept each other informed throughout.

We've both made formal complaints to our respective solicitors and will be following it up with the Law Society.

For something that was so simple, it's been one of the most stressful periods for both the vendor and I for no obvious benefit - the end contract/lease was exactly how we specified from the outset. Neither solicitor "added" anything other than putting the legalise terms around what we'd agreed.

I shudder to think what would have happened if we hadn't bothered to check the paperwork before we signed it. How many sellers/buyers just glibly sign what's put in front of them without properly understanding it, because they assume their solicitor would have checked it properly!!

surfatwork

Clearly there are others in the same boat as us, which in a strange way, both saddens and gladdens me!!
In our case, our estate agent, ourselves, the seller and the estate agent on his chain all want this closed asap. The only people who dont seem to get this are the solicitors.
Dave - not being paid enough is no excuse for doing a lousy job. The clowns we are stuck with weren't the cheapest, neither did they offer many of the guarantees the larger firms do. and they are specialist property solicitors. I would cheerfully pay a premium for getting a good service. If I balance that against the cost of continuing to stay where I am, the premium is preferable.

Dave_Ham

surfatwork wrote: »

Clearly there are others in the same boat as us, which in a strange way, both saddens and gladdens me!!
In our case, our estate agent, ourselves, the seller and the estate agent on his chain all want this closed asap. The only people who dont seem to get this are the solicitors.
Dave - not being paid enough is no excuse for doing a lousy job. The clowns we are stuck with weren't the cheapest, neither did they offer many of the guarantees the larger firms do. and they are specialist property solicitors. I would cheerfully pay a premium for getting a good service. If I balance that against the cost of continuing to stay where I am, the premium is preferable.

I am not belittling your situation, I know how frustrating it can be. Clearly at an emotional time, I do not want to turn this into me fighting your solicitors corner as clearly they have been doing a poor job so do not misinterpret this as that.

When things go wrong, people are happy to pay a premium but in the cold light of day in advance they do not always want to..

There are many variables and no-one is going to post on this thread we had a really good solicitor as typically that is not the world or environment we live in.

I have seen some really bad examples of solicitors too, suppose why I always try to use our local solicitors where feasible and ensure I can then manage the process and prevent your type of situation.

I genuinely hope this speeds up for you and you get what you, vendor and my mates the Estate Agents want.

billybear1

for me it has been the communication (or lack of) that has ruined this all. FTB going for a chain free repossesion. All searches completed before mortgage offer came out (I know, but I had a no complete no fee promise) and all background work done. Offer came out nearly two weeks ago and in this time the solicitors acting on behalf of the lender and my solicitor seem unable to communicate. It's SO annoying.

BB

lazer

Its seems normal procedure, as my estate told me at the time, the sales process should be getting quicker as there are fewer house sales, however the opposite seems to be the case - solicitors are getting slower and slower.

My Offer was accepted mid August, and didn't move in to January.

It took 6 weeks to get the deeds from the vendors mortgage company (or so they tell us)
Then an issue was raised which did take some time to sort out, however, it was very much slowed by the solictiors, who were at a stalemate for a month. My solicitor said she wouldn't issue the draft contract until Statutory Declarations for right of way were received and the vendors solictor said they wouldn't obtain the statutory declarations until the draft contract was received.

It took them a month to sort this, so for 1 month both solicitors were sitting doing nothing on my purchase.

Thrugelmir

lazer wrote: »

Its seems normal procedure, as my estate told me at the time, the sales process should be getting quicker as there are fewer house sales, however the opposite seems to be the case - solicitors are getting slower and slower.

Normal business practice would be to reduce employee numbers to reflect lower volume of work. So at peak times such as end of stamp duty holiday. There's envitablely going to be delays and a backlog created.