HouseNetwork - anyone used their conveyancing?

InMyDreams

I am considering using HouseNetwork to sell my house in the next few weeks. I'm wondering about using their conveyancing team too.

It will be a no chain sale - I'm not buying another house. They quote £800 for the conveyancing on the sale (I've estimated a £250K sale price for the purpose of the quote) or £560 total if I pay £119 of it up front. (I've added the VAT onto all prices.)

This includes 'mortgage fee' and 'official copies'.

I'm wondering if anyone has any experiences of their conveyancing team, good or bad.

InMyDreams

Shameful bump... anyone?

Madmel

I don't have experience of them, but have recently faced a similar decision selling my mother-in-law's retirement flat.

We decided to go with the EAs who use the manager of the flats to do viewings. It's probably not the cheapest EA option, but it is most convenient for us, and at the moment, it is the most important factor. We received the details of their in-house conveyancing team and at first glance the quote looked very competitive. However, the various extra charges [in miniscule print] meant that it was quite expensive, and in fact no cheaper than our local solicitor. These lot may be "available 24 hours a day" but I would rather deal with the same person at a local solicitors who will answer my questions and know exactly who she is talking to.

If you have dealt with other property transactions in the past and know what you want, then go for it, but I think that having a named person working a couple of miles from me [I live in a tiny village] who returns my calls promptly is worth its weight in gold.

sirmosh

I haven't used them but when I bought last year the vendors used them and our conveyancer described them as being 'a massive pain in the !!!!' to deal with. I don't know the specifics but she said they were slow to respond, often ignored questions and instead gave stock responses or said 'we don't know' in response to questions that must be answered.

It can't have been that bad though since it didn't appear to hold the sale up.

Definitely worth getting a couple of quotes from local firms and asking friends and relatives for a recommendation.

InMyDreams

Thanks for the replies. I haven't found any horror stories yet, so that's encouraging enough for me to give them a go. I'll keep this post updated with how it goes. So far so good though. I love the way everything can be done online... eg uploading our ID documents was so easy and quick. But I'll reserve judgement until we get a sale and they actually have to do some work!

To the guy who 'helpfully' just offered his discount code (for which he will get a 10% kick-back)... too late. I've already used the code of another poster who has posted loads of really useful feedback on other threads. I hope no-one else spams this thread with their codes. Or if they do, at least have the decency to post something usefully along with it too

richardw

There's already a thread for code referring, so why is it here jkgray?

InMyDreams

jkgray wrote: »

It's hardly spamming, you don't use a code you get no discount, you use the 'refer a friend' code I posted and the new customer ('the friend') gets 5% off and the existing customer (me) gets a referral bonus. Using the code therefore brings only benefit for both. I despair at some people on these forums who do nothing other than try to pick fault. Now that deserves a

Really??

Well I just don't think it's appropriate, especially if you don't fess up and mention the 10% in it for you too. There are so many people here with referral codes now, I guess they agree with me too or they'd all be pasting their codes all over every house network thread.

And what's more, in getting my own code after I signed up, I've now also spotted that *anyone* can get a code - you don't even need to have used house network yourself. Have you even used them? If you/others really wanted to be helpful, they would post this link and let a *real* mate refer them.

In light of that, anyone who can't be bothered, please feel free to use my code : NTUQHPMOBG

(not that I'm actually able to recommend them yet... they are coming to take photos tomorrow... but hopefully now I've conceded the above, I will be able to recommend them (or not) without any conflict of interest)