conveyancing... finding a solicitor??

BurnsieUK

Hello.

I am in the process of selling my first property (I will not, at this stage, be buying somewhere else).

I am selling my house through House Simple as they offered a commission free sale, which they are honouring.

I now need to find a legal team to handle my conveyancing.

House Simple have an in-house team that work 7 days a week, quoting £1,027. This is for a leasehold property that still has a mortgage on it.

I have a couple of quote from local companies, quoting £908 - 967. However, House Simple is no sale, no fee, whereas these companies take “a cut” depending on what part of the process you are on when the sale falls through. I understand a good thing about going local so I could “pop in” if it goes wrong/slows, however, I work an hour away from home, so this “popping in” probably wouldn’t happen!

Finally, I have online quotes via Conveying Index.co.uk, for between £600-£650 (companies such as PM Law limited, Gorvins Solicitors etc)… they have good trust pilots scores…but that probably doesn’t meant a lot, does it??

House Simple appear to be the most expensive, but maybe the safest, simplest and quickest…which is kind of what you want, yes?

Any advice for a newbie welcomed.

SmashedAvacado

no solicitor wants you to pop in. Its a colossal waste of time - I
A firm that works 7 days a week is of limited use because they won't be able to get hold of anyone - so what they will be doing will be limited -
check the quotes are exclusive of VAT / inclusive of VAT
go with the firm that were most responsive

BurnsieUK

all firms emailed a quote over in a matters of mins, followed by a call

and all inclusive of VAT.

Good comment about the 7 days a week however! :T

If the buyer is also using House Simple for their conveyancing, then things would be better I would guess?

:beer:

davidmcn

Make sure you're comparing apples with apples - quotes may have different assumptions about what the "standard" fee includes and often a lengthy list of "optional" (but possibly commonplace and/or unavoidable) extras.

itmakessense

Sussex Law Solicitors highly recommended. If selling it doesn't matter where located phone for a quote and feel the difference to everyone else you have spoken to. Ask for Jane

SmashedAvacado

BurnsieUK wrote: »

all firms emailed a quote over in a matters of mins, followed by a call

and all inclusive of VAT.

Good comment about the 7 days a week however! :T

If the buyer is also using House Simple for their conveyancing, then things would be better I would guess?

:beer:

They ought not to be. You want different people representing different parties. This ensures no conflicts of interest.

eddddy

BurnsieUK wrote: »

House Simple have an in-house team that work 7 days a week, quoting £1,027. This is for a leasehold property that still has a mortgage on it.

Are you sure?

Their website says:

Housesimple's conveyancing service is provided by Premier Property Lawyers. Regulated by the Council for Licensed Conveyancers.

https://www.housesimple.com/services/conveyancing

There are lots of reviews / discussions about PPL on the web - they do work for lots of EAs

Their reviews on Trustpilot seem generally good - but many are suspiciously brief.
Their reviews on other sites are not quite as good.
https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/premierpropertylawyers.com
https://www.solicitor.info/premier-property-laywers-1/leicester/
https://www.reviews.io/company-reviews/store/premier-property-lawyers



Note that PPL will pay a chuck of your £1027 fee to Housesimple, for referring you...

Please note that we also carry out conveyancing transactions which are referred to us by various third parties, who are often paid a referral fee for making the recommendation. The amount of the referral fee varies, but the average is £252.82.

Link: http://www.premierpropertylawyers.com/

MovingForwards

I emailed 3 local solicitors, advising my price range, areas I was looking at, explained my position and asked for quotes.

Got 3 quotes back, full breakdown of costs, varied prices between them and then had to see which was on my lenders panel, only 1 was and that made my decision easier.

You need to get a good feel for who you are paying to do the work, weigh it up against the reviews (most people only leave a review when they are fed up and things have gone wrong, rarely do people leave reviews when things have gone well).

Cheap may not be good.

Working weekends may be to catch up with workloads and do things they don't have time for during the working week.

Kyresa

BurnsieUK wrote: »

Hello.

I have a couple of quote from local companies, quoting £908 - 967. However, House Simple is no sale, no fee, whereas these companies take “a cut” depending on what part of the process you are on when the sale falls through.

If your boss asked you to work on a project, and you'd spent three hours on that project, then the boss came into you and said "oh, we don't need to do that now, you don't mind if I don't pay you for that three hours work do you" would you be happy?

If your answer is you would mind, why would you find it not acceptable to pay someone who has done work on your behalf?

The conveyancers take the least amount of money for the most amount of work in this process (and leaseholds are a pig to get through at the best of times!! Sorry.. but it makes my blood :mad::mad::mad::mad:

eddddy

Kyresa wrote: »

If your boss asked you to work on a project, and you'd spent three hours on that project, then the boss came into you and said "oh, we don't need to do that now, you don't mind if I don't pay you for that three hours work do you" would you be happy?

If your answer is you would mind, why would you find it not acceptable to pay someone who has done work on your behalf?

The conveyancers take the least amount of money for the most amount of work in this process (and leaseholds are a pig to get through at the best of times!! Sorry.. but it makes my blood :mad::mad::mad::mad:

Are you being serious, or is that an obscure joke?

Conveyancers are big boys, they know what they're doing!

"No sale, no fee" is a marketing tactic - they do to get more business, so that they make more profit.


They will be carefully monitoring how many sales complete, versus how many fall through - and they will have set their fees accordingly - so that they maximise their profits.


You don't have to worry about Premier Property Lawyers (and others). They're a very big company, and probably making lots of money.

One of the reasons they got so big is probably because of their "no sale, no fee" marketing tactic.

Kyresa

eddddy wrote: »

Are you being serious, or is that an obscure joke?

Conveyancers are big boys, they know what they're doing!

"No sale, no fee" is a marketing tactic - they do to get more business, so that they make more profit.


They will be carefully monitoring how many sales complete, versus how many fall through - and they will have set their fees accordingly - so that they maximise their profits.


You don't have to worry about Premier Property Lawyers (and others). They're a very big company, and probably making lots of money.

One of the reasons they got so big is probably because of their "no sale, no fee" marketing tactic.

I am being very serious. it hurts the local solicitors who are just trying to earn a wage - the ones who don't just employ bucket loads of minimum wage unqualified admin staff but actually rely on qualified staff to do the work and don't deal with 500 cases a month.

(I have picked up the pieces from quite a few clients who have moved from PPL because they were having a nightmare and I dread it when I see they are the other side !)

(edit and just to add my post was based on the not wanting to use local solicitor as they aren't free if you back out point that was made....)