Conveyancing Complaint - Yes or No????

thewrongtrousers

I'm just wondering how far things you let things go before you make a complaint about a convayancing solicitor. Should it only be when a sale is completed and they have missed mentioning something crucial or can you / should you complain for general uselessness?

Apologies for length of this (I was needing a bit of a rant:mad:)

Situation:
We are helping my mother in Law to purchase a leasehold flat, and it is still going after 5 months.
Reasons we think the solicitor has taken the proverbial;

a) Took over a month to even start the searches (apparently a 6 week wait in our area), blamed us for stopping them but we clearly said not to.

b) Doesn't answer many of the questions asked, but rather than just saying they will look into it or don't know the answer, just deflects to a different subject meaning we then have to email again and sometimes yet again to get an answer. E.g. We asked a question twice in one email about the leasehold agreement but got one reply listing service charges and another related to work being carried out on the property in the future - the solicitor then pressumed these answered the questions although neither related in any way.

c) Refuses to answer some questions. An example of this is that we are having an indemnity policy taken out on the property but when we ask if X or Y or Z is included in the indemnity policy they refuse to answer and just say they can't speculate on the future property value - we have never asked this and assumed they would be able to advise on the legal terms of a document associated with conveyancing.

c) Has given us incorrect information on three seperate occasions regarding various reports done on the property. On one such occassion they attached a report to demonstrate an issue and said one thing then to show the issue had been addressed attached the same report stating the situation had changed without any further information. They have also told us that work has been carried out by the property owners when it has not been and they have told them it has not been.

d) We asked for various questions to be put to the property owners but at least half have not been and some have experienced subtle changes so they refer to things we didn't ask and didn't need to ask. These are not questions that could be easily misunderstood, they were clearly set out and emailed.

e) The situation has now got so bad getting the correct answers to questions that their advice is to not purchase the property anymore if we don't like the answers.

We have used solicitors before quite a few times over the years and had mixed results (when we bought our first home the solicitor used to take 3 hour lunches at the golf club!!!) but have never dealt with one that on the face of it appears to be this incompetent.

Are we being too picky, it is a bit of a stressful time so are we reading too much into it because we are so invloved? Obviously it isn't on the scale of some conveyancing errors we've seen in papers and TV etc. But any advice from people removed from the situation would be appreciated, if only to give a sense of perspective.

AlexMac

I wouldn't tolerate that service, so let google be your friend; masses of advice out there Eg##
http://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/report-solicitor.page#how-complain

which includes relevant stuff like ...
"-complain to your solicitor or you will not be able to take your complaint further—whether to the Legal Ombudsman or to us... (that particualr professional enforcer) —
- try approaching the problem informally at first - if this does not work, your solicitor should always give you information on their official complaints procedure and your right to take the complaint to the Legal Ombudsman.

If so- complain to the solicitor) as soon as possible, be clear on what your complaint is and how you would like it to be resolved— document who you spoke to, essentialif you take it further;
keep calm, and be polite and give them some time to resolve your complaint—the Legal Ombudsman suggests up to eight weeks; more help, hints and a template of a complaint letter a on the Legal Ombudsman's website."

So I'd cut and paste your moans above with a few more dates, names and specifics... and meanwhile email your solicitor asking fortheir complaints procedure. That action alone might prevent later application of the broomsticj (which I don't suggest be done orally!)

knightstyle

Well are they a registered solicitor?
Are they local?
Did the Estate Agents recommend them?
If so go to the office and make a fuss in front of their clients and keep doing this until you get answers.

TBagpuss

No, don't wait until things have completed - that is too late for them to correct errors or deal with the issues.

Complain now, be clear and specific, and (if possible) state what you wantthem todo to address the issue.

e.g. - do you want someone more senior / experienced to take over the file?
- do you simply want them to read / listen to questions more carefully and respond to the question you ask, not the one they assume you asked?

Are you using an actual solicitor, or a conveyancing company? it makes a difference , not least to your options in terms of escalating!

Is it a firm which is local to you? If so, can you go in to speak in person and try to resolve things?

G_M

Write a formal letter listing what'sgone wrong and what you want done.

* local firm of solicitors? Go in and talk to them.

* online conveyancing warehouse? Look up their complaints procedure and follow it

* one man outfit, or big firm? Escalate to Senior partner.

* Solicitor? Licenced Conveyancer? Legal Executive? Escalate to http://www.legalombudsman.org.uk/

thewrongtrousers

Well are they a registered solicitor? YES
Are they local? YES
Did the Estate Agents recommend them? NO - but they are a well known local firm and we have used them before (not the same person). Last time we moved they completed within 3 weeks!!!

Thanks for your replies, didn't know if it was just me.

They have just sent a reply to a small list of questions that I had, rather than just reply to the questions it was a 'see below' and to find the answers I had to read through about 20 emails and attachments from various people.

Whenever we have bought a property in the past we have never had many issues to question so is this normal?

davidmcn

If they're local, make an appointment and pop in to see them to go through what's outstanding. Or just get them on the phone.

(I might also ask, can you give us a flavour of the sort of question which you think is going unanswered - not suggesting you are being unreasonable but I have encountered clients who have rather "odd" ideas of what they can expect to be answered/advised on during a conveyancing transaction!)

thewrongtrousers

davidmcn wrote: »

If they're local, make an appointment and pop in to see them to go through what's outstanding. Or just get them on the phone.

(I might also ask, can you give us a flavour of the sort of question which you think is going unanswered - not suggesting you are being unreasonable but I have encountered clients who have rather "odd" ideas of what they can expect to be answered/advised on during a conveyancing transaction!)

Sorry just looked back into the forum and realised I hadn't replied to your message. I appreciate what you are suggesting, however from the solicitor's later replies they were well aware that they should have been answering the questions and tried to blame the sellers solicitors and the property owners for many of the occasions. But just as an example: had to ask multiple times for various documents to be sent, we knew the solicitor had them as they had forwarded the emails (just not the attachments) from the original sender to us from weeks before.

Anyway we decided not to initially complain about the solicitor, however another situation has come to light that I will be posting and asking advice about shortly.