Using two solicitors for sale and purchase

Taadaa

Having never sold and purchased at the same time before - can anyone advise whether using a different solicitor for sale and purchase (in order to save money in our case) is worthwhile or will we regret it?

Doozergirl

It will complicate things slightly - adding another link to communication chain is another possible place for things to break down.

Where possible, I'd keep it all in one place.

kingkano

Its also another money transfer (=time and cost) on completion day.

Taadaa

Thank you, it doesn't sound like the extra hassle.

homer_j_3

I think the law society rules that this should not happen so you may find that its not allowed. No expert but I know that when some of my clients tried it, it couldnt work.

Ticklemouse

On a similar vein - I am (trying) to sell my house due to divorce. So - assuming we are in a position to both buy a new house when we sell this, what's the best way to go about conveyancing? 1 solicitor for all 3 transactions or to split it - ie one of the purchases goes through separately?

Severnside

Taadaa wrote: »

Having never sold and purchased at the same time before - can anyone advise whether using a different solicitor for sale and purchase (in order to save money in our case) is worthwhile or will we regret it?

I would strongly advise against, particularly as on the completion date if you have 2 solicitors, the money has to be passed from one to the other which could mean you sitting with your furniture van outside your new house longer than you expected. If the same firm are doing both sale & purchase it is much easier to co-ordinate things like exchange of contracts. I can't see any advantage in having 2 different firms - it could actually prove a complete nightmare!

bylromarha

We bought a new house last year and got £500 toward legals if we used the builder recommended solicitor for the purchase.

We'd already appointed a solicitor to deal with our sale, so was reluctant to use a different solicitor for the purchase due to all the reasons others have listed above.

But we did go for 2 solicitors as £500 was a good incentive. I'd love to say nothing went wrong!

The builder appointed solicitors sucked...they never returned phone calls, delayed transferring our excess money after the sale, and they STILL haven't got our land reg docs to us, one year on.

However, they would have sucked if they were dealing with our sale as well as our purchase. There were no issues at all communicating between them as my sale solicitor was very proactive and dictated the timescales to the other...dread to think how long the move would have taken if she hadn't driven it forward and we'd only had that 1 incompetent solicitor dealing with the sale as well as the purchase.

So if you have 2 good solicitors dealing with each aspect of the sale, you just have to weigh up whether the saving is worth it. If our second solicitor was any good at his job, then all would have been great and money saving with us using 2 people...you don't repeat any information as each deal with different aspects and they communicate dates between themselves.