Finding a competent solicitor / conveyancer or just DIY

dont_use_vistaprint

You would think after over 30 years doing a dozen or so sale and purchase transactions, I would have nailed this but every time it’s as bad as the last. Well I had one good one, but he left the company and is doing something else. He was professional, honest, pragmatic and understood , like many of in business , how to get things done properly and efficiency while not breaking any rules.

The others are at best dishonest, lie, mislead  completely incompetent when it comes to managing a workload and have to constantly be told how to do the job they apparently trained for and have some sort of qualification.

On a recent call I asked what’s left outstanding to close. I was told not sure haven’t picked up the file for a few days. Well have a look now while we’re on the phone, click a button, open your issues log you fool. No, Ill get back to you in a few days’ time. If a member of my staff gave me that response, they would be gone instantly. These guys need to think about a career flipping burgers or something a bit less academically challenging.

How do ensure you don’t choose a duffer ?

How viable is DIY conveyancing ?

onylon

I think the biggest issue with DIY is that other party's conveyancer won't deal with an amateur. I suspect this will be a non starter.

I understand your point though. When asked what was outstanding my last English solicitor would just lie and say she was waiting in the other side. I had to get a list of the outstanding queries from my buyer and get my conveyancer to go through them with me one by one which showed that everything was waiting on us. Most of the conveyancing work seemed to be very basic admin tasks. Basically get documents from X, verify them and forward to Y. She kept saying her emails had been lost so I had to repeatedly get things resent to her and ask that I was copied in on everything. She got quite angry with me when I started using read receipts and followed up emails with a call to see if she had got my documents this time. I hate calls and generally avoid them but I'm not sure what else to do if someone is apparently unable to reliably receive and then forward an email?

My advice would be to move to Scotland. Solicitors here seem much more organized and efficient.

GDB2222

Solicitors in Scotland often act as estate agents. That means that they are vastly better paid than English solicitors. 

People here post about how to get a good deal on conveyancing fees. Then, having chosen the cheapest, they moan about the job not being done well.

 In England, to keep conveyancing fees down, most of the work is done by non-solicitors. Some of them are very good, with loads of experience, but it’s pot luck. 

TBG01

How viable is DIY conveyancing ?

have to constantly be told how to do the job

Shouldnt be hard seeing as you apparently already know how to do it.

These guys need to think about a career flipping burgers or something a bit less academically

 I'm starting to think that the issue isn't your Solicitor, but maybe your attitude.

babyblade41

I have used the same company for 35 years and my parents before that .

They are superb , not the cheapest but in comparison an excellent quality of service and IMO good value for money 

TBagpuss

Personal recommendation is generally the best.

However, as others have said, I do wonder how much is your own attitude or unrealistic expectations.
The push for ever cheaper costs means that most conveyances are dealing with very high workloads - it may well not be practical to drop everything to look at your file, they have other clients whose cases may be more immediately urgent.

Obviously they should never lie to you, but given that knowingly lying is a career-ending matter for a lawyer I would be surprised if that is something that is happening regularly or with a lot of different individuals.  However, they are human and may make mistakes - if you are phoning and demanding  immediate answers without giving them time to check and get back to you then they may not remember accurately.

What you may do in your own business may not translate well to a totally different type of work -perhaps you would get on better if you treated your conveyancer as a competent professional rather than assuming you know better than they do how to do their job. Bear in mind that you are one of probably 150-200 people thy have active , open files for.

Flugelhorn

I got to know my solicitors when they did something small and straightforward for me - certified copies of POA or something, they were pleasant and efficient and didn't make me feel as though it really was only a small job. I then got them to do conveyancing - the first sale was absolutely fine so we carried on even though they are many miles from where I now live - they have done 5 lots of conveyancing in 4 years and it has all been stress-free. Hopefully won't need them again for a while! 

onylon

GDB2222 said:

In England, to keep conveyancing fees down, most of the work is done by non-solicitors.

Same in Scotland. Most of the work is straight forward administrative tasks- sending/receiving documents, filing, scanning, answering phones etc. I used to do this stuff for pocket money as a child* so it's intensely frustrating to watch your solicitors firm make a mess of it.

If it was some arcane legal concept causing a problem I would actually feel far less stressed out than watching them fail at things I could trivially do myself. If you look at the complaints made about solicitors, on this forum or elsewhere, it's usually not about the actual legal work so I know I'm not alone here.

* I do not suggest or condone the use of child labour, any breaches of minimum wage legislation or client confidentiality.

lr1277

There was another thread a few months ago about a poster wanting to perform a DIY convancing as they had done it before.

Let us assume you are a seller without needing to redeem a mortgage.

As a seller, your solicitor will verify your identity to the buyer's solicitor and that you are the owner of the property. The buyer's soliticor will accept their assertion on both counts.

The buyer will want to knowl that you have the right to sell the property and their solicitor cannot easily get that information without your cooperation. Also if the buyer needs a mortgage, the solicitor acts for the mortgage company as well as the buyer. It was pointed out that will be a condition of a risk-averse mortgage company that the seller acts through a solicitor.

If you think it can't go wrong, at about the same time there was the story in the news about some vicar I think who was away in Wales, and had his (mortgage free) house sold by fraudsters to an unwitting buyer. The vicar lost the house though he should get compensation from the Land Registry. Also the fraudsters I think used legitimate solicitors.

I did try to find the previous thread on my username, but the search in this new version of the forum is not as good as the search on the previous forum. And I don't want to be searching on the words DIY or conveyancing in the current search facility.

fimacdoodle

I think you pay for what you get.
`old adage I know.
I had a bad experience with a cheapie online. They all took on too much work at the time.

Make your choice `!

steampowered

There are two big problems with conveyancing:

1) A lot of conveyancing shops are bargain bucket places. If you choose a factory conveyancing shop, you usually get what you pay for. 

2) Conveyancers have to pay through the nose for referral fees. Did you know that if you use your EA's recommended conveyancers, or a compraison site like reallymoving.com, the solicitor needs to pay a referral fee which is usually around £250? When you take that off £500-600 you are paying (excluding VAT, searches etc.) the amount left for legal work peanuts. 

I used a small local firm and have been really happy. They actually respond to emails and keep me updated - never got that from a factory shop. Not much more expensive than the conveyancing factories either.