Almost at exchange- now solicitor is leaving

T4taylor

As the title says really, our solicitor has been really poor with communication (see my previous posts) and has dragged out the whole process to now inform us she is leaving the company.

Suddenly she wants everything done yesterday e.g. closing help to buys and transferring down funds when we still have not received the enquiries report we have been waiting for since Jan. She says she wants to tie everything up as has given us a 10% discount on her fees (my husband knew her previously) and not charged us for the H2B admin.

However she is planning to leave on the 20th March and the completion date is 20th April so surely the case will be passed on to someone else in the interim?

martinlewisjunior

I don't know how easy it is to do, but get a new solicitor

Smodlet

Does she work alone or as part of a firm? If the latter, surely she will just transfer any work to a colleague, won't she?

3mph

We had that, our solicitor was a very good friend of the family, left just before completion. After chasing for some months it turned out that whilst we had exchanged contracts nothing had been done with the LR and made more complicated by needing a Deed of variation by original owners to extend lease to 250 yrs. The Senior Partner described it as a dogs breakfast although he didn't do that much better. We "Completed" on 31 Mar 17 and our ownership has finally come through at the LR last week. I thought we might end up with it having a 1st birthday.

Bit disconcerting when I checked the LR a few months after completion to find the original owners still the registered owners but now with no mortgage and me £0.5million poorer.

Because we were cash buyers then we didn't have a mortgage company to ring alarm bells.

Speak with the Senior Partner, do not assume anyone will do what they say. And chase, chase, chase.

Learnt our lesson and just used a different set of solicitors to do Wills etc and they were as bad. So did the LPA on line and much easier and cheaper.