Leaving a Solicitor review... When i finally complete

dalehitchy

I'm getting that annoyed with my solicitor that I've begun writing a review early. Tell me what you think. :A


This is the first review i have ever written and let me start by saying i very rarely get frustrated, and when i do i normally keep quiet as i usually think the people are having a bad day and i don't want to make them feel worse. But xxxxxx must be having a bad 5 months.

It’s ironic that when you're first greeted by xxxxxxx answering machine that it states that they keep you 'updated every step of the way’.... Because that is anything but true. You'll get so little communication you will probably forget you are even buying a house. Heck, they probably forgot about it too. You will occasionally get to speak to a secretary… if you contact them first and manage to actually get one of their promised mythical call backs.

Now i don't like calling many people useless, but any questions directed at the secretary will usually be responded with 'oh I don't know what that means on the document’.... Well… YOU sent ME the document so you should know. At least go and find out for me! The secretary will also talk all over you over and not listen to what you actually say. You'll get an answer to a question but it's not the question you asked. Any update given will normally be the same update you got 3 weeks ago. I know it takes time to get responses to searches… But Apparently it takes 3 weeks to even send a document to my lender (to which my lender responded… why are they sending us this… well don't need it)

The seller was frustrated in the end. The mortgage broker was frustrated. I'm frustrated. My mortgage broker have been chasing things up where they can. I think they did half of the solicitors job as they chased for things with the bank when the solicitor didn't. When i had confirmation that the bank had replied to my broker I was lied to by xxxxxxx that they were still waiting for a reply from them. They replied 2 days prior!

The final annoyance was that the solicitor was away for a week… and the response from my lender was not understood by anyone at xxxxxxx and was was being passed around. When myself and my mortgage broker chased this up with the lender… my lender was wondering what's the confusion. I think xxxxx will do anything to bide time as they probably took on too much work… or they are just plain incompetent.

dalehitchy

Too harsh or deserved?

hazyjo

I think you're just frustrated and trying to find a way to vent your anger, etc.

It's a bit like childbirth. Once it's all over, you'll forget about it. I could have written it about most solicitors I've dealt with as it's the most important thing in your life at that time and you feel they're not responding quickly enough or keeping you informed - but when I look back, I've not got many bad words to say about most of them lol.

Secretaries aren't qualified to give out information. I'm a legal secretary myself (corporate though) and would never give out info over the phone to a client. It's all given by qualified solicitors. Oh and I'm just there to do my job and leave at 6pm. I'm not there to understand documents, I merely amend them. Sorry I'm not a wannabe solicitor (or even paralegal). I'm there to pay my mortgage and bills and wouldn't want to do their job if my life depended on it.

Jx

anselld

Looks like normal conveyancing process!
Perhaps you are FTB and have not realised that Solicitors work to a different timescale to everyone else. You need to lower your expectations or face further disappointment in future.

Davesnave

It's far too long and full of unnecessary detail. Few will read it.

Where's it supposed to go? This isn't the praise and vent section of MSE.

Next time, do better homework on finding a good solicitor who will meet your expectations.

AlexMac

Complain formally?
http://www.lawsociety.org.uk/for-the-public/using-a-solicitor/complaints/
or move on as suggested above?

Reviews? Who reads 'em?

Parallel case in point; if you google GOLDCAR, a car rental company in Spain, you'll find 250,000 complaints, not just of inefficiency, but of real scams costing holidaymakers hundreds of euros in fake fuelling charges, insurance add-ons and fabricated bodywork damage.

But new complaints still appear weekly on Tripadvisor; implying that there is an endless supply of gullible punters out there.

At least UK solicitors are regulated!

ReadingTim

Vent away if you want to, but all it really says is that you don't really understand how firms of solicitors work, nor appreciate the somewhat different timescales they operate to.

It also suggests you're looking a level of handholding that's simply unrealistic in this day and age - businesses rarely have sufficient time to call customers out of the blue with updates to say that there is no update. Finally, whilst buying a house is a bit deal for you, you are simply one of many customers they have, all of whom are at different stages of what is ultimately a relatively dull procedural transaction for a solicitor.

Sorry if this isn't what you want to hear, but I feel you need your expectations managed a little here...

tykesi

I always think reviews and complaints have more impact if the spelling and grammar are correct throughout, anything else just gives me a certain idea of the author and I find it hard to shake it.

Let me guess OP, you found the cheapest firm you could without checking reviews? You really do get what you pay for.

steampowered

It sounds like you used a cheap volume conveyancer? If so you wouldn't have been dealing with an actual solicitor.

I think you should remove the reference to lying. This is an unfair allegation. It is also defamatory, especially as you are naming the individual.

You simply don't know whether that person was lying or not. It is perfectly possible that the bank's response was misplaced, or that he/she simply missed it.

lika_86

I worked in a high volume, low cost conveyancing firm as a new graduate from university (on the princely sum of £12,500 a year).

We charged a few hundred pounds for a simple freehold transaction, some transactions lasted months, required a lot of work and we received a lot of demands on our time from clients constantly chasing unnecessarily (one example being a client who called at 4.40pm on a Friday for an update and again at 9.10am the following Monday, I'm not sure what he thought might have changed in half an hour of working time, but there you go).

The problem is that client see themselves as handing over thousands of pounds to their solicitors and so expect a top notch service. In reality, once you take out stamp duty, search fees, CHAPS fees, registration fees etc, the actual fee to the solicitor is really small, so they have to take on a lot of cases to actually make any money. The trade off for paying so little is that sometimes you will not receive the service you would in a firm which charges more and takes on fewer clients.

Also, to expect a secretary to answer legal questions really is unreasonable. If you don't know the answer, why would a secretary?! Don't get me wrong, many are very good but even if they suspected they knew the answer, wouldn't tell you for fear of being wrong or misleading.

Don't leave this review anywhere.

hazyjo

lika_86 wrote: »

Also, to expect a secretary to answer legal questions really is unreasonable. If you don't know the answer, why would a secretary?! Don't get me wrong, many are very good but even if they suspected they knew the answer, wouldn't tell you for fear of being wrong or misleading.

Exactly. I'd probably be sacked if I started looking up info and giving it out! The legal profession does not work like that! I'm not 'allowed' to even say if someone's out of the office or away and can't give out any names or positions. We can only say 'they're unavailable at the moment'. The only thing I put my name to is when I forward post on to companies that have their registered address here.


Jx