House purchase: choosing a solicitor?

Adamc

Hi all

I have done a search on Money Supermarket and have found numerous companies to handle the legal aspects/searches related to the house I am buying. However, I am struggling to choose.

How beneficial is it that the solicitor is very local i.e. within 10 miles?

What factors other than cost should come in to it and how can I find out about these?

Many thanks

KL0001

Reviews and recommendations. Personally I!!!8217;d always pick a local solicitor over an online firm, the ease and convenience of being able to drop stuff off, local knowledge and just that I!!!8217;ve rarely heard anything good about the cheaper online firms.

We got 3 quotes from local firms, seeing how quickly they replied and how easy to deal with, but ended up going with the one my niece had recently used as she was happy with them and they worked quickly, this was more important to us than price.

olgadapolga

When I sold my house, I used the cheapest I could find via the internet. I must have been really lucky as they were brilliant, despite the buyer of my house being a complete and utter pain and their solicitor being totally incompetent. No purchase involved, just a sale.

Recently I've found a house I want to buy and so needed a solicitor. I again found that the online ones were way cheaper than the local ones. I selected one (having checked their website and speaking them) but once instructed, their costs and fees started to snowball, so much so that several local solicitors were a lot cheaper. I found them very slow to respond to queries. They also wanted a massive "deposit".

I went with a local firm in the end and they have proven to be invaluable, particularly with their local knowledge and ease with which I can contact them/their response time. They have only requested the money for the local searches, no deposit.

I don't think that I'd ever bother with an online one again as they appear to hide costs and contacting them was a nightmare (well, apart from when I told them that I wouldn't be using them after all, then they were constantly badgering me).

It's absolutely true about getting what you pay for.

davidmcn

Local knowledge helps, but being able to visit their office isn't necessarily all that helpful (bear in mind that many clients can't easily take time off during working hours for chats with their solicitor). And many "local" solicitors are useless. I would focus more on the quality of service.

FTBNow

We found our solicitor using iConvey - they're cheap and brilliant despite us being West Midlands based and the solicitor being Yorkshire based.

kerri_gt

We used 1st Property Laywers online.

I did get online quotes and local ones, one local firm never bothered to respond to my request (even after me chasing) and one was extortionate. I made a shortlist of ones online whom had either called me following up the marketing lead or whom I thought might be good for any reason. OH then looked at reviews and we chose this one.

They were fantastic, online portal to track the case progress, really responsive and helpful. Had the worst come to the worse I could have driven documents there if need be but so much is done online now, that physical documents we needed to return just got sent special delivery.

mangog

First thing I did was ask for recommendations from friends and colleagues. From those I got 3 quotes, 2 from solicitors and 1 from a conveyancing firm. The conveyancer was cheapest, the two solicitors came in around the same price. I decided to eliminate the conveyancer because as a FTB I wanted to be sure I was covered for anything that went wrong! From there I picked the solicitor closest to my office, who also happened to be the one with most recommendations from people I know. They have been great so far, and I'd estimate that being able to drop paperwork in on my walk to work has saved at least a week in post time! They usually send me a franked 2nd class envelope to return documents so instead of waiting 2-3 days they get it back the next morning. That's been worth it for me.

ThePants999

I've used local solicitors and I've used distant solicitors. I've really found sod all difference. Having to post some things you could otherwise have dropped off directly is a small price to pay for having the ability to choose any solicitor, anywhere - quality makes much more difference than location, so go with recommendations.

north101

We have used a large conveyancing firm this time. Costs have snowballed and it appears our conveyancer has a large team below her and is probably dealing with hundreds of cases. They havent been great. Last time we had a smaller firm, fixed cost and the solicitor didn!!!8217;t have a large team and probably only had half a dozen cases on at the time. I wish we!!!8217;d gone back to her.

Both times weve used a firm within driving distance and I have dropped off paperwork instead of posting which has actually helped move things on quicker as when you!!!8217;re dealing with deadlines an extra 24 hours really helps.

PasturesNew

I always pick one that's local (2-3 miles) and where it's easy to park, so I can drop in for/with ID, to collect/read documents, to show my face if I want to chase them (more likely to get a move on if they know you can and will just turn up).....

You just never know when there's something that you could achieve quickest immediately by going in there. "I'll post that to you and you can post it back" -v- "I can collect it before you close today, read it in the car, then sign it and shove it back through your letter box".

No having to send of important personal documents/evidence for ID etc either - go in there with your passport, walk out with your passport.

You're also more likely to be dealing with somebody who "speaks just like you" - whatever that regional dialect is.... so you'll be understood and understand what they're saying.

victoriavictorious

We've gone with a small local firm who have been brilliant, and whose office is just a 2 min walk from our present house.
Whilst I totally agree about the massive advantage in being able to drop off paperwork, search fees etc in person, however good / fast they may be, they can still only proceed at the pace of the slowest and most inept link in the chain!
We're in the beyond-frustrating situation of having a lightning-fast efficient solicitor who deals with things immediately, yet they are forced to keep chasing up our vendors' tortoise-slow solicitor who takes weeks to reply to anything and spends a lot of time ignoring communications. This could well cost us our buyer who is getting fed up of waiting.
The process can only be quick if everyone involved is on the ball, which seems to be almost never, so as you have no control over what the rest of the chain does, it probably makes little difference in the grand scheme of things who you go with.