Solicitors are no good to anyone.

babyblade41

If you read your rant the common denominator is agents conveyancers .

Buy cheap buy twice , a good solicitor who specialises in conveyancing is worth their weight in gold .

The process of buying and selling is a relatively easy process, it's the communication that is the crux of every transaction .

Avoid conveyance factories they deal with hundreds of transactions and you are just a number in a queue and quite often have to delegate when it's not the norm especially where there is a leasehold involved 

Good ones are very hard to find but when you do then don't go anywhere else 

pinkteapot

Agree with everyone else - your best bet for a good solicitor is one recommended by friends and family. If you don't know anyone locally who's moved house recently, ask on your local neighbourhood Facebook group for a recommendation. 

I have only once used a solicitor recommended by an EA, but it wasn't their generic recommendation. We accepted an offer from someone who had to complete in six weeks. We were moving to rented so no onward chain. I asked my EA which solicitor in town he'd dealt with recently that was efficient, on the ball, and could handle a very fast transaction. He recommended an individual at a local solicitor's firm and she was *brilliant*. I think in that case he knew that it genuinely would fall through if it wasn't fast, and we'd sold for a higher price than he'd expected, so he didn't want to miss out on that commission! 

If your EA is Bairstow Eves, or any agent owned by the Sequence group, definitely don't accept any of their recommendations for mortgage/legal services. Sharkiest of sharks. 

AdrianC

No way would I use a national conveyance factory, any more than I'd place the slightest weight on trustpilot etc "reviews".

100% for personal, local recommendations.

Jduk90

Again thanks all. I have not used a big factory as I've heard bad things. it is a local firm recommended by the EA.

Their reviews are good and the sellers sols reviews are OK and are local too.

So this is why I am frustrated as neither set of sols are big corporation types but rather local with knowledge, so I thought, but both seem so slow and reluctant to chase, I am now in week 18 for a 4 chain and the people at the bottom are more annoyed than me and threatened to walk as first time buyers so SDLT exempt anyway.

Tiglet2

Conveyancing can take some time, which depends on every property and party in the chain to complete all the processes needed before exchange can take place.

Without knowing what each transaction is 'waiting' for, it is impossible to give an accurate answer as to why it has taken 5 months.  Solicitors are very busy and giving updates to clients, which doesn't actually assist in their work, does get neglected.  The EAs are very good at chasing everyone in the chain, so you should contact your EA so that they can pinpoint exactly who needs to do what and provide you with a bit more information on the cause of the delay.

For example, if there is a leasehold property, probate property or a new build property together with LISAs, HTB Equity Loan, HTB ISAs, Management Companies, title errors or historic charges on the title, solar panels, these are all matters than can cause delays and are out of the control of the solicitor.

Solicitors prefer emails to calls, purely because an email is written evidence of a request, whereas as a call cannot be relied upon.

firebubble

"I ring up, they say we're awaiting replies, I ask them to chase, they say they "send emails"

I asked why don't you call and they sounded very politician like and said they were doing everything they could.

I called today saying I had found out that the information we require can be obtain from..... and turn around time is 10 working days, so the sellers solicitors should have had a reply now.

my solicitor said that basically they have to wait, I said email or CALL them and explain that the customer has found out that..... why are you taking so long."


In this situation, where you are waiting for replies to enquiries, you would be better chasing the EA, as they will chase the seller and find out whether the seller has received the form from their solicitor/returned the completed form to their solicitor/replied to their solicitor to fill in the inevitable gaps from a sloppily completed form/whether their solicitor has confirmed to the seller that they have sent the completed replies to your solicitor.

Only in the last case is it worth chasing your solicitor. For everything else, speak to the EA.

Also, the 'information' you mention (presumably searches?) has to come from the proper source in order for legal reliability. Even if a random google search supposedly gives the same information, your solicitor has to get it from the proper source so that they can confirm it is correct (otherwise they would be negligent).

AFF8879

Someone needs to add a link to this thread in one of the stickered posts as a reminder of why you should never use agent/developer recommended solicitors 

Vegastare

Years ago we were selling house and we were contacted by estate agent to ask us were we aware that our property was not registered with Land Registry.  Seems Solicitor had not done it correctly - the buyer of or property could not believe we were not aware of this and pulled out of the sale.  Yep I was angry but estate agent later told me she thought they were looking to pull out anyway and this was there trump card.  Back to solicitor - I knew someone who worked in the same office and months later met in passing, she told me the office was in uproar when they found out the error as it had circulated round all local estate agents and other solicitors etc.