First Time Buyers: Weeks of no communication from solicitors! :(

katkatmachine

i think your solicitor should update you even if there’s no update, like if they are still waiting for something, or a response from developer, mortgage advisor, whoever. We are lucky with our solicitor because every week they update us with the progress. Every time we email them they respond within an hour. They were actually referred to us by the developer, i know some people would would say that it’s a bad idea to get the solicitors recommended by the developer but so far we did not experience any problem with them.

Thrugelmir

hotnoise said:

Thrugelmir said:

In a professional office time costs money.  People aren't paid to sit around twiddling their thumbs waiting to see what emails arrive on a minute by minute basis. If your broker said that the offer was forwarded across. What were you hoping to achieve by wasting somebody's time to answer your question?  
Solicitor will get back to you once there is something to report. No doubt they are still awaiting return of the searches before submitting the enquiries. 

Telling someone they shouldn't expect a reasonable degree of service and communication because it's a "professional office", and everyone is busy, literally made me laugh out loud!

That's an insight into the productively levels within your office. 

SameOldRoundabout

I also think they should be updating you! It’s a nerve wracking process and you need to be on top of it. I wouldn’t be impressed with no response and mixed messages. I try not to mail ours unnecessarily but when I do she responds within 24 hours. 

Tiglet2

Not a lot of work can commence until the solicitor receives the draft contract pack and is able to review those documents before raising any initial enquiries.  I know you say that the solicitor does have this now, but how many working days ago were they received?  With lengthy legal documents to read and review, it is not a quick turnaround.

Contract packs on new builds tend to be large, with many legal documents and information to review.  Due to other work priorities, it is not always possible to review all the information provided in a matter of a day or two.  Fridays tend to be a popular completion day so the priority then becomes making sure monies are transferred from account to account order that a completion can do through successfully.  Unfortunately, reviewing a draft contract pack while overseeing completions becomes a much lower priority. 

Your solicitor should have updated you, provided you with a guide to explain the process and managed your expectations of timelines much better.  Please understand however that in providing updates every week to all their clients does impact on all the actual conveyancing that they have to do.  It takes times to retrieve a file to see where it's at and provide updates every time a client wants one.  While they are doing that, they could instead be progressing the legal work on a clients' case, for example.  Unfortunately many firms, in cutting their fees to provide cheap conveyancing, are taking on more and more cases which means the time spent liaising with the client becomes stretched to the point that some solicitors will only update their client when there is something to update.

The exchange deadline given by developers is a preferred guide but is rarely met due to the majority of conveyancing legal work taking longer than developers would like, but as long as progress is being made, developers are unlikely to stop the sale to you.

Thrugelmir

Tiglet2 said:

 Unfortunately many firms, in cutting their fees to provide cheap conveyancing, are taking on more and more cases which means the time spent liaising with the client becomes stretched to the point that some solicitors will only update their client when there is something to update.

Clients would soon get upset if they were billed on an actual time basis, i.e. per minute spent on their case. 

bucksbloke

Some solicitors/conveyancers are not specialists in new builds and don't get how they work either

Kyresa

Thrugelmir said:

Tiglet2 said:

 Unfortunately many firms, in cutting their fees to provide cheap conveyancing, are taking on more and more cases which means the time spent liaising with the client becomes stretched to the point that some solicitors will only update their client when there is something to update.

Clients would soon get upset if they were billed on an actual time basis, i.e. per minute spent on their case. 

I'd be overjoyed if we were billing in 6 minute units for every phone call, email, letter etc etc... that £500 conveyancing transaction would run into a thousand or so for some clients who feel they need to "chase" every other day  

[Deleted User]

I have an amazing solicitor ! Always getting updates by email. In fact the agent updated me yesterday about my seller. I knew my solicitor had just come back from leave so I thought Id keep out of her hair for a few days but she was bang on it today letting me know whats happening . 

Its a fixed fee conveyancing - so none of these 6 mins for every email, phone call etc. 

MovingForwards

Sounds like we are using the same firm!

On initial instruction they were fine, a few emails between us, then I sent a copy of the mortgage offer, which got a response.

Over a month later an email about one clause in the offer, which I had pointed out. I emailed my broker and got an explanation, emailed it to the solicitors and asked for their opinion and also again explained I don't know the Scottish process. Nothing.

Sent an email the weekend asking for a copy of the title deeds to read / see what my obligations are and reminding them I'm still waiting for a response to my other email from two weeks ago. Nothing so far.

I'm looking to complete in seven weeks.

My solicitor is the partner, his trainee and secretary are copied into all emails. So there is no excuse for one of them not to deal with it.

Had I ever ignore correspondence like this when in practice I would have had a rocket up my.....