Views on using non-local conveyancing solicitor to buy

martindow

Ramouth said:

There are local idiosyncrasies that it may be useful to use a local solicitor for.  E.g. buying in Cornwall it is useful to have a solicitor who is familiar with Mundic, Radon and mineral rights.

Agree, and urban conveyancers can panic with aspects of rural properties that threy do not routinely deal with - septic tanks, private boreholes, etc.

newsgroupmonkey_

Richiem1987 said:

I do mine via company in Richmond and buying in Newcastle. Most documents arrive by post/email etc, so you wouldn't even walk into their office. 

We used a company from the North East too.

Not a single document came via the post. They're absolutely on the game with IT (as are we). Scanning documents backwards and forwards was a breeze.

Shame about the vendors tortoise local harrassed guy that clearly had far too much work on and did things at this own pace.

mr_stripey

I used an online "distant" conveyancer in the past and it was a proper pain. This was after always using one of the local solicitors in the town in the past. Would not do so again. Being able to go and speak fact to face with them was very useful.

Caveat - we live in a small town and everyone knows everyone pretty much and it seemed like an advantage that I "knew" the team working on my case.

When the same solicitors handled my divorce during covid it was not possible to have face to face meetings of course. In fact the first time I met my divorce lawyer he was serving beer at the local beer festival! 

Philomel

I used a solicitor who wasn't local to me (they used to live in my area but had moved away, and came recommended by somebody I knew), never met them in person, no problems at all and I was happy with the service they provided. They were also the cheapest of the three solicitors I enquired with.