Advice on dealing with conveyancer please?

stuckftb

@Sunsaru , sorry to hear about your lengthy process, it sounds frustrating!

You say 'you need to harrass' - this is what I'm confused about really; I thought it was normal and acceptable to contact your solicitor regularly for updates and didn't think weekly (or more like every two weeks as I had been contacting her previously) was excessive. I asked her to drop me a weekly courtesy email so that I wouldn't have to chase - I get that you're saying she isn't going to do that. But I think I'm really asking - whether it's me contacting her or her contacting me, is my asking for updates really unreasonable? What I took from her email was not so much "you can call us, but don't expect us to call you," but more like, "you have to just trust that we're doing the work and stop asking." Again, my interpretation of course!

Thrugelmir

Your best source of information will be the Estate Agent. There'll know , or at least should do, what's happening in the chain above. As it's this which will determine the speed of the transaction. 

Thrugelmir

stuckftb said:

What I took from her email was not so much "you can call us, but don't expect us to call you," but more like, "you have to just trust that we're doing the work and stop asking." 

Isn't this how most people do their own jobs. There are only so many hours in a working day. Better to be productive than not. Time costs money. It isn't free. 

gagahouse

I had the same issue as you. Rarely contacted them but when I emailed, never replied. When I called, always not available or at lunch whether it was morning, lunchtime or afternoon. Always promised to return my call, never did. So I sacked them by email, told them they can keep the £150 I prepaid and can go and whistle for the rest. Of course, they never even acknowledged that email either. Employed a local solicitor for more money but at least I get responses and can see some progress.
My main issue as a seller was how I could I trust them to send me my money after completion if they couldn't even do the simplest things like respond to legitimate and pertinent questions which were material to the contract?

Sunsaru

@stuckftb
By harass I meant try and contact, wait, try and contact again, wait, send and email, wait, contact MA, get a response!! This would be over 2-3 weeks before it came almost daily "Right I'm getting slightly narked here would someone please answer me!!" It's been really frustrating in parts but it's almost over the line now so I have mixed feelings. They have got the job done so was it really that bad in hindsight?? No it wasn't but I won't be using them again.
I believe you should read the response as "you can call us, but don't expect us to call you unless we need to. You have to just trust that we're doing the work". 

stuckftb

OK, thankyou very much for all your responses.

tooldle

To give context, i am nearly six weeks in to a three property chain. My sale is property 2 and purchase is property 3. I’ve spoken to my solicitor once, when she emailed and asked me to call. I’ve emailed her twice to notify survey having been done and additional investigations now complete. I see no need to communicate unless there is some information to share. Assuming no further queries, the next i expect to hear from her is calling me in to sign the contract. 

houghton91

@stuckftb have you paid money for her to conduct searches yet? If so has she told you whether she's awaiting them/how long she expects to hear back? If not, you could tell them you'll be finding another firm.

I'm purchasing and selling at the moment and for a few reasons needed a quick turnaround - we went from offer accepted to exchange in 9 weeks (which I know is very quick and very rare at the moment) but to do this I needed to talk to my solicitor often. They are extremely busy at the moment but I think some have taken on more than they can reasonably handle imo, so found that my conveyancer only actually looked at my file/chased when I called her.

If you'd like more frequent updates I doubt she'll give them by the sounds of it, so how about you calling her each week, or what I did (on my conveyancer's advice) was set up a fortnightly call to discuss where things were up to, at a specified time in both our diaries.

I feel for you and I don't think you're being totally unreasonable - you are paying them at the end of the day and if you haven't been rude or personally offensive then you're allowed to call out if something isn't working for you.

chloeH95

Anyone know if solicitors email or post forms to other solicitor e.g fixture fittings form

Seashell517

chloeH95 said:

Anyone know if solicitors email or post forms to other solicitor e.g fixture fittings form

I received the fixture and fittings form as part of a PDF with multiple other bits of information, which looked like it had been emailed from my vendors solicitor to mine. I later had another copy on paper, but that looked to have been printed off so I think this had also been emailed originally.