Finding a good solicitor and timescales.

chasingfreedom

We have finally had an offer accepted on a property, woo hoo!! How do I find a good, efficient solicitor? I would really like to find somebody who will respond efficiently and communicate with us throughout. I hear lots of stories of people taking weeks between emails, which I'd love to avoid if possible. We have no chain but the owner of the house we are buying now has to find somewhere (they've been viewing but couldn't offer) and we don't know whether they'll have any chain yet.

Does anybody have any recommendations or any advice? What is an average timescale at the moment for the whole process? I know years ago you could usually assume 8-12 weeks but not sure whether that's possible now with Covid?

M444BYR

Hey! Congrats!
Are you going through a Broker? Usually brokers have recommended Solicitors for conveyancing etc.

chasingfreedom

M444BYR said:

Hey! Congrats!
Are you going through a Broker? Usually brokers have recommended Solicitors for conveyancing etc.

No, we did start with a broker but then we went directly through Natwest because the deal we wanted was only available to customer directly, not to brokers.

chasingfreedom

M444BYR said:

Hey! Congrats!
Are you going through a Broker? Usually brokers have recommended Solicitors for conveyancing etc.

and thanks

amnblog

Firms as you describe do not exist. If is possible to get lucky but generally they will work at a pace that suits them.

dj1471

In my experience it’s really really hard to find a good solicitor, especially since many are overwhelmed with work at the moment.

I would suggest checking reviews of local solicitors on Google, avoid online outfits if you care about speed.

If you post where you are in the country people may be able to give specific recommendations.

Also be sure to check that the solicitor you choose is on your lender’s panel.

lonibra

From what I've seen, solicitors don't care for your business because they are swimming in it. Costs have increased significantly as well.

Thrugelmir

Speed of the transaction depends on (a) other parties in the chain (b)  speed of response to request for documents (c) communication with the mortgage lender.  Being constantly updated means very little. As much of what your solicitor will do is on behalf of the mortgage lender. 

[Deleted User]

The more communication you want the slower the transaction will be.   Conveyancer friend recently told me she gets 200+ emails a day.   Spends half her working time just reading the emails never mind actually responding to them.  
Get a recommendation for a good solicitor and then leave them alone for the most part. Thats generally the best way to do things at the moment

chasingfreedom

Thanks everyone for your advice. I'm not wanting to pester anyone, i want them to get on with it with as little interaction as possible I just want to find somebody who will actually respond if there's a question and keep me updated if any issues really. I decided to go for a local company who had good reviews, they also mentioned that they stopped taking instructions at the peak of the housing madness because they didn't want to take on too much which I really liked. Hopefully that's a sign they like to offer a good service!! They weren't the cheapest but very open and clear on their charges whereas the others were slightly cheaper but definitely hadn't listed everything (for example fees for bank transfers) Guess I won't know if it was the right decision till further down the line!!