Changing solicitor

Locornwall

I was supposed to sell my house and purchase another one and instructed a solicitor. I have since backed out of buying that house and decided to buy a new build instead.

The seller wants me to use one of their solicitors instead and has offered £1000 solicitors fees incentive. I don’t have a problem changing, however what happens in terms of the other solicitors feed etc? How easy is it to do?

Tom99

I would want a proper arms length relationship between my solicitor and the seller.
The seller wants you to use one of 'their' solicitors for their benefit, not for your benefit.
If you appoint 'their' solicitor they will want to get repeat business from being referred by this developer so they will not have your interests at heart.

eddddy

Locornwall wrote: »

The seller wants me to use one of their solicitors instead and has offered £1000 solicitors fees incentive. I don’t have a problem changing, however what happens in terms of the other solicitors feed etc? How easy is it to do?

Your solicitor would have sent their 'terms of engagement' (or a similarly named document) before you instructed them.

It will say what happens about fees if a sale is aborted. Often, you pay them at an hourly rate for the work they've done (but capped at the total fee they quoted).


But as Tom99 suggests, often it's not a good idea to use the developer's recommended solicitor.

And you may find that the developer's solicitor is much more expensive (because they pay a referral fee to the developer) - which negates some of the £1000 payment.

Davesnave

Perfectly easy to do; you just pay for the work done by your current solicitor and say "Au revoir.".....but, as above, I wouldn't.

AdrianC

Locornwall wrote: »

The seller wants me to use one of their solicitors instead and has offered £1000 solicitors fees incentive.

The solicitor is the ONLY person on your side in the whole house-buying mullarkey.

Pause and ask yourself why the seller is willing to give you a grand in order to compromise that.

davidmcn

Before doing so, please read a few of the threads here by people frustrated at the poor advice they've had from their tame developer-approved solicitors.

[Deleted User]

I had a client whos solicitor (provided by developers at a 'discount') exchanged and set completion without the mortgage deed on file. And it was even on the solicitors day off and he exchanged from home.

I've never come across that before and I am just curious if pressure was put on him from superiors after getting a nudge from the developers.

Arms length is always better

Locornwall

I just wonder what could a solicitor do to create an issue for me because they have connection with the developer?

davidmcn

Locornwall wrote: »

I just wonder what could a solicitor do to create an issue for me because they have connection with the developer?

• Fail to flag up any of the potential downsides in the title (see threads about people who never had the full implications explained to them of title restrictions, ground rent, service charges, etc).
• Not bother negotiating the standard form of contract (see threads where longstop dates haven't been inserted, leaving buyers locked in to contracts while construction is delayed).
• Not be interested in pursuing any post-completion disputes with the developer about faults etc.

Slithery

Your solicitor should be the only person in the buying process who has your best interests as there primary motive.


With an independent solicitor you can be pretty certain that they will bring all possible issues to you attention even if it means that the sale falls through, if you use the developers solicitor you can see there is a conflict of interest as they wont want to p*ss off a client that gives them a regular stream of new customers.

Locornwall

I see your point