Buyer's cheap online solicitor is taking forever. What to do?

Nova1307

Hi all, 

8 weeks into the process of selling my house and my high street solicitor is sending me weekly updates with the main theme being that the buyer's solicitor is too slow to respond to emails and requests and I have a really bad feeling that this will drag on for many months. It often takes 1-2 weeks just to get a reply to an email. The buyer is using a cheap online firm called PM law and I just looked at some of the online reviews and they are mostly horrendous. They seem to specialise in road accident claims but the conveyancing reviews are appalling with many claiming that the sales/purchase process took the best part of a year!

I would like to avoid a situation where this drags on for many more months and so I wondering what I can do. Could I give the buyers an ultimatum and say either they change solicitors or I am putting the property back on the market?

Thanks in advance. 

Snookie12cat

Let's be clear, price doesn't mean quality. My buyer is using a local solicitor and they are terrible also, no replies etc. 
I am using a large online solicitor and they are fantastic. Luck of the draw. Maybe ask your buyer to chase the solicitor up.

What stage are you at and what are you waiting for replies from?

Nova1307

Snookie12cat said:

Let's be clear, price doesn't mean quality. My buyer is using a local solicitor and they are terrible also, no replies etc. 
I am using a large online solicitor and they are fantastic. Luck of the draw. Maybe ask your buyer to chase the solicitor up.

What stage are you at and what are you waiting for replies from?

Thanks for the reply.

My solicitor replies to my emails within an hour or two and so I have no doubt where the issue lies. To take 1-2 weeks to reply to emails is very slow and i can see why others say it took the best part of a year to complete. 

Contract pack was issued by my solicitor two months ago, queries raised by buyer's solicitor three weeks ago and my solicitor responded within a day and no reply as yet and so contract pack still awaiting approval.
Enquiries raised three weeks ago and responded to within a day - my solicitor is awaiting confirmation that responses were satisfactory. Title deed awaiting approval. Buyer also has a property to sell via the same firm but I have no visibility how this is progressing. Nothing can happen until the buyer's sale has progressed to the same level. 

Snookie12cat

Nova1307 said:

Snookie12cat said:

Let's be clear, price doesn't mean quality. My buyer is using a local solicitor and they are terrible also, no replies etc. 
I am using a large online solicitor and they are fantastic. Luck of the draw. Maybe ask your buyer to chase the solicitor up.

What stage are you at and what are you waiting for replies from?

Thanks for the reply.

My solicitor replies to my emails within an hour or two and so I have no doubt where the issue lies. To take 1-2 weeks to reply to emails is very slow and i can see why others say it took the best part of a year to complete. 

Contract pack was issued by my solicitor two months ago, queries raised by buyer's solicitor three weeks ago and my solicitor responded within a day and no reply as yet and so contract pack still awaiting approval.
Enquiries raised three weeks ago and responded to within a day - my solicitor is awaiting confirmation that responses were satisfactory. Title deed awaiting approval. Buyer also has a property to sell via the same firm but I have no visibility how this is progressing. Nothing can happen until the buyer's sale has progressed to the same level. 

Nightmare. It might be everything is fine and the other purchase is not ready so the solicitor is not bothering to respond because they have no news or can't proceed but it drives me loopy! 
How hard it is to reply?

We are due to exchange and complete this week but my sellers solicitor (local firm) are bad and do not reply, do not answer the phone. I doubt it's happening now. 

No suggestions I am afraid but I worry I'll be here asking the same question about by buyers solicitor in a few weeks.

Nova1307

Snookie12cat said:

Nova1307 said:

Snookie12cat said:

Let's be clear, price doesn't mean quality. My buyer is using a local solicitor and they are terrible also, no replies etc. 
I am using a large online solicitor and they are fantastic. Luck of the draw. Maybe ask your buyer to chase the solicitor up.

What stage are you at and what are you waiting for replies from?

Thanks for the reply.

My solicitor replies to my emails within an hour or two and so I have no doubt where the issue lies. To take 1-2 weeks to reply to emails is very slow and i can see why others say it took the best part of a year to complete. 

Contract pack was issued by my solicitor two months ago, queries raised by buyer's solicitor three weeks ago and my solicitor responded within a day and no reply as yet and so contract pack still awaiting approval.
Enquiries raised three weeks ago and responded to within a day - my solicitor is awaiting confirmation that responses were satisfactory. Title deed awaiting approval. Buyer also has a property to sell via the same firm but I have no visibility how this is progressing. Nothing can happen until the buyer's sale has progressed to the same level. 

Nightmare. It might be everything is fine and the other purchase is not ready so the solicitor is not bothering to respond because they have no news or can't proceed but it drives me loopy! 
How hard it is to reply?

We are due to exchange and complete this week but my sellers solicitor (local firm) are bad and do not reply, do not answer the phone. I doubt it's happening now. 

No suggestions I am afraid but I worry I'll be here asking the same question about by buyers solicitor in a few weeks.

I wish my buyer had used your online firm! I will face abortive legal costs if I do pull out but the prospect if this dragging on for many months doesn't bear thinking about. Think I'd rather cut my losses and put it back on the market.

Hope you manage to exchange and complete soon. I just wish people who do due diligence and choose their solicitor carefully.

trix-a-belle

I had similar when I sold 4 years ago. What is your estate agent doing to earn their money? get them on it if they want the sale they should be supporting you to the end not just advertising and getting an offer.

My estate agent certainly earnt their fees to drag mine along and over the finish line, they and my solicitor held the whole chain from top to bottom together as we also had a flaky investor with internal lender and external solicitor involved. There was possibly some guilt as the EA had recommended the conveyancing outfit to my buyers but the local office in the near by city they recommended had accepted it and promptly handed it off to their office in another city an hour away (the whole firm has subsequently blown up and disintegrated big style since), this office sat on the contract pack for 6 weeks with no replies at all to my solicitor, before extracting their finger and appearing with some laughably basic questions, the rest of us were mostly ready to start talking dates at this point.

The EA was fairly well focussed as they were selling both my house and my buyers but they really did put extra in including writing emails for my buyer to send to press them into action, & pulling strings on all the connections they had in the firm, I believe they stopped using them for a while after due to the poor handling.

tacpot12

The best thing to do is to speak to the buyers, and let them know that it is their solicitor that is holding things up. The buyer will either be keen to move and will complain to their solicitor, or they will be happy with the delay and not do so. Niether you nor your solicitor will be able to chivvy the buyer's solicitor along, only the buyer has any influence over them. 

TripleH

Tacpot12's advice is the way to go.

Push for your buyer to chase their solicitor on this (they are the only ones who can).

See how the buyer responds, if they are slow and unresponsive too then that's when you begin the ultimatums part.

Adly812

Speak to the buyer and politely outline your concerns. It is important to have fact before accusing their solicitors of being responsible for the delay. Sometimes your own solicitors can use that trick to place blame, meanwhile they’re just as held up. 

The estate agent if any can also assist you by speaking and suggesting to the buyers to chase up the dealings

Nova1307

Thanks all. 
The EA is a small firm and are taking the view that they've done their part and it's now in the hands of both solicitors. Safe to say I wont' be using them again!
I have asked them for the buyer's contact details so that we can have regular touch points each week to check where the bottlenecks are and follow up accordingly. If we're nowhere near being in a position to talk dates for exchange and completion after say 12 weeks then I'll start talking ultimatums.