It really was

fleur8

Thank mse .

Thrugelmir

If you want priority treatment in any walk of life you pay for the privilege. Time costs money.  Otherwise you just have to wait patiently in the queue and await your turn to be dealt with. Solicitors hourly rates aren't cheap. 

Slithery

The speed of your solicitor isn't the slowest link in the chain. It's everything else that you (or they) have no control over which usually holds the process up.

Sounds like a waste of money to me.

Thrugelmir

fleur8 said:

Thrugelmir said:

If you want priority treatment in any walk of life you pay for the privilege. Time costs money.  Otherwise you just have to wait patiently in the queue and await your turn to be dealt with. Solicitors hourly rates aren't cheap. 

Of course I understand that. I was simply asking for the experiences of others who have paid the extra fee. That’s all? My solicitor charges £300 per hour extra and we’ve had to use 6 hours already, so money isn’t really
an object. I’m just trying to understand if it is a genuine offer.

Why wouldn't it be?  Normally people baulk at the additional cost. As the actual benefit may not be that great.  Paying for their time doesn't mean that they'll be productive for all of it. 

Norman_Castle

fleur8 said:

Has anyone ever done this and is it even a thing?

Its called extortion, I expect its legal but its not very fair. If you had offered to pay extra for a priority service it would be acceptable but it appears its expected of you and you're being coerced into paying.

Remember to mention this and the very slow progress in your feedback of this solicitor once the process is completed.  

greatcrested

If the solicitor has a pile of clients' files on his desk to work through/deal with, he will normally use a combination of first-come-first-served and which-has-the-soonest exchange/completion date.

If you pay extra, he may well pull yours from the middle/bottom of the pile and review it earlier.

As slithery says, it'snot usually this that delays the conveyancing though. It's waiting for the council searches, or the freeholder management pack, or response to Enquiries from the seller's solicitor. Or  someone elsewere in the chain holding things up.

But if as you say the review of the lease extension is the only thing holding things up, then paying the extra might get you there marginally faster.

Or might just get the lease dealt with faster only for you to have to wait just as long for the seller's seller to get their mortgage agreed....

davidmcn

fleur8 said:

Thrugelmir said:

If you want priority treatment in any walk of life you pay for the privilege. Time costs money.  Otherwise you just have to wait patiently in the queue and await your turn to be dealt with. Solicitors hourly rates aren't cheap. 

My solicitor charges £300 per hour extra and we’ve had to use 6 hours already

Extra? On top of what? £300 an hour itself is a generous fee for residential conveyancing, and if all it's getting you is (supposedly) being put closer to the top of the pile in their workload, it doesn't exactly sound good value.

Thrugelmir

fleur8 said:

Thrugelmir said:

fleur8 said:

Thrugelmir said:

If you want priority treatment in any walk of life you pay for the privilege. Time costs money.  Otherwise you just have to wait patiently in the queue and await your turn to be dealt with. Solicitors hourly rates aren't cheap. 

Of course I understand that. I was simply asking for the experiences of others who have paid the extra fee. That’s all? My solicitor charges £300 per hour extra and we’ve had to use 6 hours already, so money isn’t really
an object. I’m just trying to understand if it is a genuine offer.

Why wouldn't it be?  Normally people baulk at the additional cost. As the actual benefit may not be that great.  Paying for their time doesn't mean that they'll be productive for all of it. 

It may not be because I have no experience in the legal field with solicitors, so I don’t know if they can legally offer to speed up work for payment but not do it, because how would I know if they’ve prioritised it or not?

Solicitors will record their time , in 5 minute segments, on an activity log.  Just the same as other professional people who work purely on a time chargeable basis. Every call, every email, every meeeting gets logged etc. Then there can be no dispute. Very different to many office workers these days who wile away their days texting, browsing the interenet or chattting to friends on Facebook via their mobile phones. 

davidmcn

Thrugelmir said:

fleur8 said:

Thrugelmir said:

fleur8 said:

Thrugelmir said:

If you want priority treatment in any walk of life you pay for the privilege. Time costs money.  Otherwise you just have to wait patiently in the queue and await your turn to be dealt with. Solicitors hourly rates aren't cheap. 

Of course I understand that. I was simply asking for the experiences of others who have paid the extra fee. That’s all? My solicitor charges £300 per hour extra and we’ve had to use 6 hours already, so money isn’t really
an object. I’m just trying to understand if it is a genuine offer.

Why wouldn't it be?  Normally people baulk at the additional cost. As the actual benefit may not be that great.  Paying for their time doesn't mean that they'll be productive for all of it. 

It may not be because I have no experience in the legal field with solicitors, so I don’t know if they can legally offer to speed up work for payment but not do it, because how would I know if they’ve prioritised it or not?

Solicitors will record their time , in 5 minute segments, on an activity log.  Just the same as other professional people who work purely on a time chargeable basis. Every call, every email, every meeeting gets logged etc. Then there can be no dispute.

Yes, they can demonstrate the work has been done, I'm not sure though how they demonstrate that they've prioritised the work in return for the enhanced fee. Or indeed how that works if half of their other clients are also having their work prioritised.

youth_leader

Fleur8 forgive me if I'm wrong, but aren't you already paying a huge fee of £4K+?  If you will save a huge amount on stamp duty if this is prioritised perhaps worth paying the extra, but you already seem to be paying a premium rate. 

MysteryMe

I certainly wouldn't pay it, the solicitor sounds more like a wide boy than a member of a regulated profession. A reputable professional would manage their workload so that those tasks that need attending to first are actioned first. The process is not solely in your hands so you could be paying Mr/Ms Money Grabber for nothing.