FridaysMove - Conveyancing

J332

FTB in Hertfordshire - Fridaysmove.com - any good?

I'm looking for a conveyancing solicitor as a first time buyer, and they are quoting a fixed fee of £546 for all legal work on a no move no fee service.

Has anyone used fridaysmove.com ? Any feedback would be appreciated. They are getting pretty good reviews on the web and will direct me to a local solicitors if i want face to face contact.

My mortgage broker (L&C) has suggesting Grindeys LLP in Stoke on Trent, their online reviews are pretty poor but he is advising me that they only work with a select panel and ensure that things are kept moving. If anyone has any feedback on them it would also be greatly appreciated.

I'm near Welwyn Garden City, so if anyone has any experience with conveyancing solicitors they can recommend, it'd be a big help!

Nick_C

I used Fridays to sell a property 8 years ago. However, it was a sale only. I wasn't buying anything. They were OK, and did the job.

Buying, I would prefer to pay a little more to use a local firm. I started looking for a property 18 months ago and a local firm quoted £575 plus VAT and disbursements. This wasn't no sale no fee though, and I ended up paying £200 plus VAT for each of two aborted purchases.

EDIT:

I wanted to be able to go into an office to talk face to face with someone over any issues that arose. It was also very useful to drop documents off by hand.

eddddy

J332 wrote: »

My mortgage broker (L&C) has suggesting Grindeys LLP in Stoke on Trent, ...

You need to be clear whether they are 'suggesting' the solicitors because they are good, or whether they are 'referring you' in order to get a referral fee.

Sadly, some firms will just refer you to whichever solicitor pays the highest referral fee.

The referral fee can be as much as £500. i.e. £500 of the fee you pay to the solicitor goes to the firm/person that referred them.

It may mean that you are paying a premium price for a budget service, or it may mean that lots of unexpected extras get added to your bill to recoup the referral fee.

J332

eddddy wrote: »

You need to be clear whether they are 'suggesting' the solicitors because they are good, or whether they are 'referring you' in order to get a referral fee.

I believe the term actually used was recommended, but yes the small print shows the broker gets a sum of £184 from the solicitor for the referral.

Hexhev

I appreciate that buying a house is stressful, but oh dear God... these would test the patience of a saint! Avoid these two like the plague.

It is very hard to get a hold of L&C and the solicitors are almost impossible. You just go around in circles chasing you tail. Its frustrating.

They are very slow and really bad for first time buyers. You will also end up paying more than what they quote with all the hidden charges.

You will have to chase them constantly to get anywhere as they will just sit on paperwork for weeks until you contact them. They drip feed information and even getting a drip is like getting blood from a stone. They ended up !!!!ing our seller off. The seller contacted us (the buyers) directly as they could not get a hold of Grindeys and the sellers solicitors could not get a hold of them either. The seller had no idea what was going on... and nor did we!

Grindeys phone etiquette is even unprofessional. Usually when you call a company you are greeted with a friendly voice introducing themselves and the company. If you actually manage to get through to Grindeys you will be greeted with a "hello", and that's it.

The initial calls with L&C seemed to go very well. But as soon as we were passed onto the internal "case manager" Lauren... it just went to hell. After 4 weeks in we got an apology from the L&C internal team supervisor who said they were running 3 weeks behind. You would have thought that would have been something worth mentioning at the start.

We have went back to the initial person we spoke with because the internal was about as useful as a chocolate teapot. We had to call the bank ourselves to get things moving (which is what L&C are supposed to be doing). We even had to walk her through our bank statements (which were not complicated in the slightest) so that she understood certain transactions; a skill, even though pretty basic a monkey could do it, that you would have thought necessary for the job role.

We now don't even deal with the internal, she seems to be clueless (I have only actually managed to talk to her once on the phone). The external sales rep that we originally talked to has been apologising over and over... to the point that I almost feel sorry for him and the position the company puts him in. If it wasn't for him (Andy) then we would have pulled the plug by now and told them all to stuff it.

Avoid the frustration and stress - Just DON'T DO IT!!!

breaking_free

I used Friday's Move earlier this year and was really happy with the lady who did all my conveyancing - pm me if you want her full details as I wouldn't hesitate to recommend her.

I do think it's all luck of the draw though as Friday's Move are middlemen who farm the conveyancing jobs out to other firms. You might get a really good conveyancer or a poor one. The fixed fee is quite low in comparison to other firms I contacted AND I managed to wangle a discount just by asking (don't ask, don't get).