Online conveyancying???

glos1983

I have had an offer accepted on a house and am looking to appoint a solicitor. With our flat sale we decided to go with the solicitor recommended by the estate agents, as although they cost a bit more, they were local and worked with the estate agent before so felt it would be worth the extra expense to make everything go smoothly. I haven't found they very helpful and certainly won't be sending any more work their way.

I've been shopping around a bit today and found that some of the online quotes are about £400 cheaper - even when you disregard the ones that don't quote with all the necessary searches, fees etc. They apparently give you a direct contact to keep in touch with and you can track online. My wife would much prefer a local firm that we can see, but given our experience with our last solicitor I'm a bit uncertain of the benefits of this.

I would obviously love to save £400, but don't want to do anything to jeopardise/delay the purchase (delay not too much of an issue actually as not in a chain) so will willingly pay the extra if that is the best course. Anyone had any experience with online conveyancing and have advice to offer?

Yorkie1

Although not all online conveyancers are poor, typically you don't have someone dealing with your file from start to finish; it's an unqualified person doing most of the work with a qualified person looking at it periodically. So no continuity.

And it is often difficult to get questions answered if you need to.

Frequently, despite 'all-inclusive' quotes, when you actually read the small print it is by no means as competitive as you think.

That being said, your solicitors will doubtless be paying a referral fee to the EAs and that will be hidden in your overall costs to the solicitors you're using. Is it a national chain of EAs or a local independent one? If the former, then commonly the experiences of people using their 'tied' solicitors are reported to be poor.

Frankly I think it will be a case of from the frying pan into the fire if you go to an online conveyancer. The question is whether you are so far along the process that it is impossible to get out of the current arrangement with the solicitors and find yourself a different, decent local one.

Ciderarmy1987

I would avoid an online solicitor.

So much easier to have the same person dealing with you file and somewhere to go discuss things face to face if things get a bit complicated.

Also look on here for various people recently complaining about having to pay around 40-50 to get documents varified for their online solicitors.

motherofstudents

Agree with others, you might be lucky and get a good one online but we once used one and they were horrendous. The best thing would be if you could get a recommendation from someone who has used a local solicitor. On two occasions I have used the conveyancer recommended by the estate agent and they were really excellent and competitively priced.

outdoorcjc

I think there is a difference between an Online conveyancer and a firm of solicitors offering nationwide coverage utilising online trackers etc.

I'm using the later and found them to be very competitive compared to a local solicitor. I have an actual solicitor dealing with my case and a direct phone number for him if needed, they have been quick to respond so far and I'm very happy with the service so far, hopefully they will keep it up right up to completion.

borkid

In our last sale and purchase we used an online conveyancer. The one we chose was very good. We had the same person dealing with us all the time. If they were away from the office then they had a nominated 'deputy' to answer any queries we had. When we were due to exchange she phoned us to check everything was still OK ( this was a few minutes before the actual exchange) and phoned us after the exchange had taken place.
Emails were usually answered within an hour. She worked past 5 pm in the evening, we know this because she had to contact our EA as the venders solicitor ( high street branch) had been out of touch all day. We later discovered that someone in the office was retiring so the whole office went out for the afternoon to celebrate, this was the day exchange was due! One of the chain only had another day before their mortgage offer expired.

Sorry I have rambled. I have used 5 solicitors for conveyancing and the online one was the best in our experience.

Our conveyancer was a firm of solicitors dealing with conveyancing all over the country.

scumboss

borkid who was the online solicitor you used?

japmis

Are we allowed to post company names? I'm currently using an online solicitor who I think have been top notch, I have one dedicated person and an online tracker

Robin.84

I also used an "online" solicitor and was happy with them, I had a dedicated solicitor and an online tracker, but I didn't really need that as I got updates direct from my solicitor. I also saved £400 compared to quotes from local solicitors!

borkid

scumbag I've pm'd you with details.

sarah3585

Hello,

I'm in need of similar advice. We accepted an offer yesterday so need to appoint a Solicitor asap. The EA has recommended a local place, their fee is just off the £800 for the sale only at £135k, which seems a little steep to me. They won't move on it either.

If anyone can recommend a company via PM then I'd appreciate it. I don't think we need a local company anyway (Bournemouth) as it would have to be done over the phone /email.

Thank you