The NEW waiting to exchange thread...

SG27

deuxchatsnoirs wrote: »

If I was running a business and my volume of clients was stopping me from providing a good service, I'd limit the amount of clients I accept OR hire more staff to cover it. Solicitors aren't exempt from needing to provide a good, or even acceptable level of customer communication/service.

In my case, I have found them to be quite rude and condescending, as well as snail-like in their communication and progress. I really dislike the attitude they seem to have that as they deal with the law that they are somehow above their clients - I say this being from a family of lawyers!

Next time I instruct a conveyancing solicitor, I won't be a 'naive' FTB, and I'll be asking them what their client workload is like, and if they can ensure a well communicated, quick as possible process. I'm fed up of being treated like an afterthought in my solicitor's view.

Rant over!

Im very lucky this time round as around ad my solicitor is polite, promt and professional. I am very impressed with her so far. Usually answers my emails within an hour or so. She wasnt the cheapest but Im more than happy to pay the extra for the good service.

deuxchatsnoirs

Surrey_EA wrote: »

I agree with much of what you say.

However, the downward pressure on fees has meant that many (most?) solicitors have to take on more clients than they can realistically cope with at one time in order to make a profit.

You can have good service, or you can have cheap - you cannot have both, imho.

I agree with you there - I would never expect a good service from an online fixed fee conveyancing firm, for example. I would be more than happy to spend a bit more on an excellent solicitor - which is what I thought I was doing in this case as they are a very respected local firm with excellent reviews and not the cheapest fees, either - it seems I have just been unlucky with how my case has been handled.

Next time I think i'll shop around a bit more!

deuxchatsnoirs

SG27 wrote: »

Im very lucky this time round as around ad my solicitor is polite, promt and professional. I am very impressed with her so far. Usually answers my emails within an hour or so. She wasnt the cheapest but Im more than happy to pay the extra for the good service.

I agree - I'm finding now I would happily pay extra fees to expedite the whole thing! If only that were a possibility but alas, I wait and I wait...

jimmyhurr

SophieP2000 wrote: »

Also forgot to say... The house we are purchasing was built in the early 80s, apparently there is a restrictive covenant on the title stating that any works need to be approved by the original builder first. A conservatory has been added to the property (prior to our sellers ownership), no approval was requested, nothing of this was mentioned when our sellers brought the house, but our solicitors have picked this up and asked for our sellers to pay for an indemnity policy to cover this should anyone come to chase us about no approval for the conservatory. Our sellers have refused to pay for this, they said their solicitor never brought this up when they paid for it, and didn't ask for an indemnity insurance to be purchased.


Our solicitor has said this isn't needed to complete, however, when we come to sell in the future it will potentially be a question that's asked again.


We are choosing not to purchase this insurance, on the basis of what's the likely chance of the building coming to inspect? Apparently the builder has gone bust anyway according to our sellers solicitors. Other houses on the road have conservatories etc.


What's everyone's thoughts and experiences on this?


Thanks

As far as I understand from my father in law who is a retired conveyancing solicitor, these covenants were generally put in place by builders when they were building several homes at a time - the idea is to prevent people who bought the first batch of houses from making alterations (and thus changing the value, presentation etc.) before all the planned houses have been completed. Often these covenants are not time restricted (which seems crazy), which means they can still crop up. This happened to us on our house purchase where an extension was built in the 80s on a late 60s house: we were informed by our solicitor that this was of no concern since there has been a recent court case which stipulated that if a breach of covenant (i.e. the extension/conservatory/whatever) occurred more than 20 years ago without any enforcement action being taken, it can be considered lawful. In our case, the original builder was long since dead anyway....

EMCS

May 16 - broker submitted application
May 17 - valuation scheduled
May 25 - valuation
May 29 - valuation approved & conveyancer instructed
May 29 - Nationwide queried a payslip (because it was in a different format due to the new financial year)
May 30 - broker sent information about payslip
June 5 - offer received

Now we wait!

Roo89

Surrey_EA wrote: »

Much easier to just call the EA, then they call the vendor find out the answer and ring you back. It might only take a couple of hours.

As opposed to your solicitor writing to the vendors solicitor, the vendors solicitor writing to their client, the vendor responding to their solicitor, before the vendors solicitor writes back to your solicitor, and then passes the info on to you. That could take a week or two!!

This was my thinking but my OH has already emailed our solicitor and I don't want to bug our vendor with the same question via the EA so I guess I'll have to wait it out.

Although there's still no sign of the chain completing any time soon so it won't delay anything.

To be honest it the answer won't put us off buying the house I just want to know why there's a window on the outside but not inside :rotfl:

TamsinC

1st June - sends hubbies OFFICIAL pension statement to mortgage broker as requested
6th June - broker emails - lender won't accept a word of mouth pension statement
Really?! REALLY!! Did you expect them to?
Can I send an official letter or something?
Really?! REALLY!! Resends pensions statement.
This, this is my life. Dealing with supposedly competent people who are functionally worse than me with my ME brain fog! UG!

Sienna1990

Week 13.... everything is done and we have been ready to exchange for the last 2 weeks. Top of the chain STILL not ready because they are using online solicitors taking forever to do anything :mad: . Still hoping for completion 29th June

SophieP2000

Sienna1990 wrote: »

Week 13.... everything is done and we have been ready to exchange for the last 2 weeks. Top of the chain STILL not ready because they are using online solicitors taking forever to do anything :mad: . Still hoping for completion 29th June

oh no!! hopefully they hurry up too! we are set for completion on 29th June too and I hope it goes ok for then! We are just waiting for our sellers purchase to catch up, they are just awaiting a mortgage offer which should be early next week, and just the local search remains, hopefully this will be next week too and then we can close off. We were told our buyers on our house have been ready to exchange since 1st May, and now we were ready to exchange yesterday and apparently they aren't ready and are hoping for next week. Absolutely FUMING! How can someone be ready to exchange nearly 6 weeks ago, and all of a sudden now they aren't ready?!

SophieP2000

Turns out our solicitor told us wrong... our buyers are ready, it's just our sellers who aren't yet ready to exchange, which we already knew, hoping next week for them... PHEW!