Solicitor etiquette

dprice

You have appointed your solicitor, you are paying them, they work for you. They are not your friend. Chase every day. Be professional and friendly but call every day if needed.

They soon realise you wont go away and move your dealings to the top of the pile every day.

If its anything to do with a delay from the seller. Call and chase the estate agents. Again do this every day if required.

I had to do this on my purchase at the end of 2011.

Its very frustrating, but stay calm, professional and friendly. You will look back with you other half and laugh about it.

Thrugelmir

dprice wrote: »

You have appointed your solicitor, you are paying them, they work for you.

You are paying for them. However they also work for the lender. The lender is the master ultimately.

Let_Us_See

By now the alarm bells should be ringing. Without feedback from either solicitor (probably due to lack of instruction from vendor) and an ineffective estate agent, I would end speculation and go and knock on the vendor's door and explain your predicament. If they want to sell their property then they will be sympathetic to your current position, and if not, start looking for another property.

Keira_B

Our solicitor informed us that he'd received the contract last Wednesday (30th October) but since then we've not heard anything again, and he's not answering his phone. It's QCAS, so from what I've read on here on other posts, not an unusual situation. Our solicitor knows that we want to complete in the first few weeks of December, but because we have to give notice on our rented place need to have a month's forewarning. It's not looking like that's going to happen, does it....

Let_Us_See

Try an e mail to Victoria Mortimer, Partner and Head of QCAS and make a complaint of their shoddy service.


[EMAIL="vmortimer@qcas.co.uk"]vmortimer@qcas.co.uk[/EMAIL]

kingstreet

I bet that's a busy inbox.

Keira_B

15 weeks in and still no banana - now our solicitors and the vendor's solicitors have got into a passive aggressive email argument, antagonised by the estate agent. It's over the enquiries, which their solicitor claims they've answered, and our solicitor says they haven't. And we seem to be expected to step in/ referee. We have both completely lost faith in the whole process now. Their solicitor seems to be suggesting that the problem that our solicitor isn't local to the area we're buying in. Obviously we have no idea who is and isn't being truthful in this situation. Would it be acceptable/ a good idea to write a very pleasant letter and post straight to the vendor?

ValHaller

Keira_B wrote: »

15 weeks in and still no banana - now our solicitors and the vendor's solicitors have got into a passive aggressive email argument, antagonised by the estate agent. It's over the enquiries, which their solicitor claims they've answered, and our solicitor says they haven't. And we seem to be expected to step in/ referee. We have both completely lost faith in the whole process now. Their solicitor seems to be suggesting that the problem that our solicitor isn't local to the area we're buying in. Obviously we have no idea who is and isn't being truthful in this situation. Would it be acceptable/ a good idea to write a very pleasant letter and post straight to the vendor?

Nope, don't get the vendor involved yet.

Get the correspondence from your solicitor asking for the queries and the correspondence from the vendor's solicitor and come to a firm view as to what is going wrong here and act on that view. Don't take no for an answer from your solicitor.

I suggest that when you do get the correspondence, you check out your impressions here - but go to the housing forum http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.php?f=16 where there is a much broader resource of people who have bought and sold. On this forum you mostly get mortgage brokers - who do have a valid perspective, but I think you would benefit from the wider expertise.

At the bottom of it, someone is mucking around. Rather than lose faith in the process, you need to get to the bottom of what is going wrong and why - and get them sorted out. Your solicitor should be working for you. They should be asking hard questions on your behalf and it seems more likely that the other side are reluctant to be pinned down to some answers. But there is a small possibility that your solicitor is being over cautious. Whatever you do, to the other side, you should stand with your solicitor right up to the point that you sack them if that is what you need to do. But get advice first.

Keira_B

Thanks for your help. Our Estate Agent - having ignored our calls and emails for three months, has now got super aggressive and quite intimidating and keeps sending us emails reminding us how the housing market is rocketing and how he 'wouldn't want us to miss out.' It's horrible to get these emails which are obviously sent to induce panic but to which we can respond only with - "we've done and are doing all we can - why aren't the solicitors?"

kingstreet

Worth remembering, the EA represents the vendor, and itself.

You are not part of the equation.

The EA may be part of a group with a year end approaching. Motivation to get completion may be the agent's attempts to meet targets and get bonuses and nothing to do with properly representing his client.