Has anyone dealt with Premier Property lawyers?

SanC

We are 5 1/2 months into buying a house. Our vendor is using Premier Property Lawyers. Our solicitor has contacted them on numerous occasions with queries.  They never reply. Our house sale completed 6 weeks ago and we are staying with relatives.  Our sellers estate agents recommended the solicitors,  so seem to think this is normal. We are at our wits end, can anyone suggest best course of action for us, or give some advice?

MaryNB

Has your seller's EA been any help in driving it forward? I'd be surprised if they sat back and did nothing, surely after 5 and a half months they'd be eager to get their commission in. I'd put pressure on them. Tell them if things don't get moving you'll start actively looking elsewhere (although probably only worth saying this if you mean it). 

I wouldn't get things moving via your solicitors. Getting a sale through asap isn't something they are concerned about, it's the EA who should be pushing people to get things done. 

SanC

Thanks for your advice , will try that.

Irishpearce26

I have used them twice for a purchase and once for a sale, each time they have been great. They have an online portal where you can see who has been in touch and who your solicitor has contacted. 

The delay could be down to your vendors taking their time, it was never more than 24 hours before anything from the other solicitors reached my inbox.

SanC

No our vendor has moved out of the property months ago and is keen to complete the sale, so can't be that. 

TBagpuss

PPL are a large scale conveyancing 'factory' - they will be using case management systems so will typically only move forward when all the right boxes have been ticked - so it's likely that the reason they have not responded is because they don't yet have the necessary information from your vendors to do so.

You can chase the agents to chase their client, perhaps be explicit about the dates on which your solicitors contacted them and how long they have been waiting for a response. 

TBG01

SanC said:

No our vendor has moved out of the property months ago and is keen to complete the sale, so can't be that. 

You'll be surprised at how many "keen" sellers are anything but keen. 

Slithery

I can't find it now but there's a thread on here somewhere that's just hundreds of posts of people complaining about PP.
They get paid upfront so have absolutely no motivation to do any work.

Irishpearce26

Slithery said:

I can't find it now but there's a thread on here somewhere that's just hundreds of posts of people complaining about PP.
They get paid upfront so have absolutely no motivation to do any work.

No they don't. I've never paid them upfront always upon completion.

Windofchange

Ditto the above about not paying them upfront. I used them for my purchase last year and have no complaints, though our conveyancer did go on holiday for two weeks when we got the go ahead to exchange and the person he had covering him couldn’t complete as he had not ticked some box or other. Overall though, I would use again, and did like the online property portal which kept us up to date. 

Gavin83

Our vendor is using them and overall they’ve been a bit crap so far. The vendor complained, got assigned a new conveyancer and they have been better since so I assume they got someone more senior. I wouldn’t personally use them after what I’ve seen.